Joho the Blog
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December 12, 2003
Tom Peters was in town to talk about his new book, Re-Imagine, that "walks the walk" when it comes to arguing that business ought to be in technicolor, not black and white. I've been a fan of his since I first entered the business world with the academic's prejudice that business must be boring and the people must be not as smart as the ones in academics. Hah! As I used to say, what academics believe about businesspeople is false about businesspeople but true of academics. Peters' books, starting with In Search of Excellence, helped open my eyes to that, for he painted a vision of business that said human values work. He's always surprising. Last night, in response to a question, he expressed enthusiasm for self-help books. They're all good he said. Surely, objected someone in the audience, many are a total waste of time. Not so, said Tom. If for the price of a book you can get a single idea, the book is worth it. His larger point was that these self-help people, with their peculiarly American call to re-invent ourselves, are the heirs of Emerson. (Take that!, Chris Lydon :) . Posted
by D. Weinberger at December 12, 2003 09:36 AM
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