Peter WinickFounder and CEO @ Thought Leadership Leverage

Leveraging Thought Leadership Podcast Episode 250 Clip featuring Tom Peters

11 Feb 2021 · 2 min

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1:42

In this podcast excerpt, the host and Tom Peters discuss how external market forces and timing propelled Peters into a lucrative public‑speaking career, even though he originally saw himself as a traditional consultant. Peters recounts joining McKinsey in 1974 and launching the research that became In Search of Excellence in 1977. He reveals that McKinsey, despite commissioning the study, dismissed his work as "a piece of crap" because it emphasized soft‑skill factors. The conversation highlights the tension between hard‑data consulting expectations and the emerging focus on cultural and leadership elements that later defined Peters' thought leadership.

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Right, because that would have been a left-handed compliment then to put you in the self-help bucket. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and would have changed the career. But then the trajectory goes, the market— obviously, there's some factors that are way beyond your control in terms of the recession, the point in time in history that we're at that it resonated. as well as the style. But then for some reason, lots of people wanted to pay you lots of money to hear you speak. Like, did you even know that was a thing during, you know, during your briefcase-carrying days as a consultant at McKinsey? That's an odd—
Well, I went to work for McKinsey in '74, started the research for In Search of Excellence in '77. And McKinsey thought the work that I was doing, even though they had commissioned it, was a piece of crap because it focused on soft stuff.
Yep.
When I was promoted to partner, there was some kind of a celebration or something, and the guy who had taken my case up before the big guys said, we had this problem, and that is not a damn one of us wanted to make him a partner, but all of our clients loved him. And, you know, there was really some truth to that. It resonated. It resonated with people. I think that's the case. And the other thing is, and I owe this all to my mother, is I became a pretty energetic speaker.