Tom Peters Sidesteps Question About Falsification
Having seen Tom Peters live, I had to laugh while reading a recent USA Today interview with the management guru. Apparently, there’s been some brouhaha between Peters and Fast Company Magazine — who, at an earlier point in my life, I thought were almost one and the same.
The magazine quoted Peters as saying he had falsified some background information for his magnum opus, In Search of Excellence.
Q: In 2001, Fast Companymagazine quoted you saying that you had falsified the underlying data for Excellence. You said you were a victim of an aggressive headline. What is the truth?
A: They were trying to sell magazines. The thing I will admit to is that, depending on how you tweak the financials, you can get different answers. Is the surge (in Iraq) working or not? You can make an ironclad case that it is and that it isn’t. We didn’t falsify in any shape or form, but you can choose to analyze data differently. If one is not grown up enough to realize that, it’s a sad state of affairs.
In other words, you can play around with numbers all you want to get whatever result fits your agenda. Bullshit: the hallmark of a successful guru.