Customer Reviews

The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I've never seen so many font sizes, exclamation points and redundancy in one book. There is nothing new here, and what IS here is so mercilessly pounded on that you would have to be severely ADHD to get anything out of it. A typical paragraph: "Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate." (I wish I was exaggerating).

I made it to page 85 before swearing I would never read another Tom Peters book as long as I live. The thought of trying to make it through the remaining 453 pages made me want to pull my eyeballs out. The Little Big Things becomes the fourth book I've ever ordered from Amazon that I am returning, and the second this week. Must be a bad week for business books.

You're better off buying a used copy of The Search for Excellence, even though many of the companies featured in that book have been out of business so long that under-40 readers won't have ever heard of them.

I have been in Tom Peters' camp for 20+ years, buying all of his books, visiting his website religiously, buying the books he recommend, downloading his youtube files, watching his DVD, and learning form him more than from anyone else. He is The Guru of Gurus. I have always looked forward to his books, I bought them all, I read them all. I bought more than 20 copies of Re-Imagine to give to friends.

This book is in the same vein as his previous books, which is always crunchy, fun to read, fresh, and enlighting. Most are his regular materials, packed into one book. The chapters are made for easier search: Crisis, Opportunity, Resilience, Connection, Attitude, Performance, Work, Initiative, Leadership, Networking, Talent, Innovation, Learning, Design, WOW, and so on........ A Huge 500+ pages of stuffs that will en-light and shine on your days. This is some sort of "reference book" that you can pick and read for 10 minutes or an hour or a whole weekend every now and then.

"Business Motivation" is what this is all about, It's the little BIG things THAT MATTER. One Chapter or even one "cut" is worth reading and thinking and considering (There are 163 ways to pursue Excellence, as the subtitle said). If you have ever downloaded Tom Peters' Powerpoint Master Files, you know this is it, the complete set, sorta His Legacy. This is not a "One Big Idea" that change the world, but a bunch of small things that will make us all better business persons.

For the new readers who have never known Tom, this is a huge book with 163 ideas, jammed into one, that will last forever. Most will love it, some will hate it. Tom always thinks that being loved and being hated is much better than being ignored! (He matters.) Give it a try, you might get hooked.

I graduated from University of Chicago MBA, have started and succeeded in more than ten new start-ups, and am doing lots of public seminars nowadays. I know that I owe a lot to Tom of the way I am now. He is the mentor I have not met yet. Thank You Tom.

I've been listening to Tom's "The Little Big Things" and reading along on the Kindle version. Tom likes to zero in on simple ideas that can have a powerful impact on the success of a business (small, medium or large). This is a really healthy approach to helping businesses succeed. Folks like to read, absorb and apply...not spend all kinds of time trying to understand graphs, analyses, and information presented all-too-often intended to impress than to assist. So Tom scores very big points throughout in getting us immediately useable information.

There is one item I strongly disagree with in the book. Tom says:

"I argue here and elsewhere that the *only* effective source of innovation is pissed-off people! Hence, bite your tongue and cherish such misfits!" (the word *only* was in italics presumably for emphasis)

I'm sure some points of innovation come from pissed-off people, and I imagine Tom has considerably more examples of this than I do. But I'm also sure superb innovation has come from those not pissed-off at all. This I've seen with my own eyeballs on quite a few occasions. And sometimes these pissed-off misfits are just that: pissed-off misfits with no innovation whatsoever in their space. Quite the contrary, some are involved with undoing innovation, creativity and productivity. So I'm not on the look-out for pissed-off misfits nor should you be. Be on the look-out for innovation in whatever form it presents itself. Then check it out, test it out and use it liberally when you see it gets the desired results.

It got two stars instead of one because I suspect there are good ideas in there somewhere. But I will never find them in the avalanche of ellipses, crazy fonts, repetition, and so on. The book is visually exhausting and I find it impossible to understand or take seriously. It's not just small nuggets of disjointed information, it's poorly written and presented nuggets. Glad I took it out of the library, I won't feel guilty returning it after only successfully reading a couple pages.

Peters writes in a very confusing style and his ideas are repetitive at best, or simply incoherent at worst. Don't make the same mistake that I did by buying this book and actually reading it. Much, much, much better options out there in the same genre for the thirsty mind.

I really don't like the way he writes; Incomplete sentences and endless repetitions. Mostly resulting in a brick-sized book. Still there is no denying that he has useful and interesting things to say. His ability to turn observations in written ideas is second only to Tom Friedman (The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century). The book will give some ideas for your business and some ideas for yourself. While Friedman is on the macro level, Peters is squarely on the micro level. So don't expect anything that has to do with major trends in society. This is a typical Peters book like all the rest. However, for some reason, it doesn't feel good to read an old Peters book. I don't know why, since the content really doesn't change that much. Anyway this is not a book to buy for its profoundness. It is a book to buy if you are willing to be inspired to do some smaller changes in life.

Starting in 2004, Tom Peters started a series on his blog called "Success Tips". Over the next five years, he accumulated 176 tips and Harper Studio contacted him about taking the tips and turning them into a book. The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence is the fruit of that effort.

To describe Little Big Things as collection of blog posts would be a terrible misnomer. The titling on each tip may, at one time, have resembled something else, but all of these were rewritten and edited and written again and edited some more.

I go through all of this trouble of explaining, because many are going to say that this is just a rehash of things they have heard from Tom before.

"Excellence is the subtitle for gosh sake!"

And the answer is yes. This is going to sound familiar.
The crazy acronyms are stamped throughout the book.
Exclamation marks abound.
That big chunky bold font appears on almost every page.
The book is classic Tom Peters.

"But is there anything new?"

No, and there doesn't need to be.

"Why?"

Because we don't listen...no, we don't act, we don't do anything differently than yesterday or last month or three years ago when everything was going fine.

We don't hire the S.W.P.s (seriously weird people).
We don't read enough.
We don't serve people.
We don't do enough WOW.
We don't do enough NOW.
And there is always some lame reason why.

Tom has been always been about getting past the lame reason. If you don't think there is anything holding back and you are only doing really cool stuff that everyone on the planet loves, Little Big Things is not for you.

If on the slightest chance, you could use someone to give you a little push, or you think reading something inspirational might help, then this book is for you.

My experience is that people fall into one of those two camps.
Find your camp.
You'll know what to do.

What's a Little BIG Thing? "A compelling nugget of a life experience that is representative of a BIG and Potent Idea." - Tom Peters

I used to think Lists were Dullsville but Little BIG Things read like an action thriller! That's not an easy thing to do with 500 pages of robust tips. Three things you might find interesting:

1. I approached the book from different angles to see how the reading experience would hold up: 1. Reading page by page in a linear fashion; 2. Random page reading; 3. Pages chosen from the Table of Contents that were relevant to something I'm working on; 4. Pages chosen from the Index that seemed totally irrelevant to things I'm working on. In each case I found myself getting actionable, novel tips in less than 30 seconds that I could start running with.

2. Tom's speaking and writing voice is humorous, provocative, and deep-to-the-core insightful. The book is the same. It's a refreshing combination of aspiration and perspiration. It's not a "normal" book. It's derived from a blog which means, thankfully, the structure doesn't follow a tidy plotline. For me, as a learner, the exuberant layout gave me easy access to 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence without needing a nap after!

3. Little BIG Things is packed with credible, curated content. If you've been reading Tom's blog over the years, you'll get a great refresher on core content. The book also includes the 19 Es of Excellence and 7 Special Sections: Guru Gaffes, The Recession 46, The "Equations", You, Me, & Charlie Wilson's War, Quotations 34, Top 50 "Have-Yous", and The Heart of Business Strategy. Enjoy!

One of the little big things that Tom Peters has learned over his storied career as the world's preeminent management guru is that People Love Lists. And Tom is a master list-maker.

This book is, in essence, a list--but this is nothing like the list you'd write for yourself before, say, going to the grocery store, or beginning a road trip, or mapping out the next phase of your career.

This list is...well, it's a freakin' work of art, is what it is: emotional, provocative, great to look at and entertaining to read. But most of all, it is business-and-life wisdom expounded bit by bit and item by item.

If you're a long-time Tom fan, you have to add this to your TP library. Goes without saying. I am, I admit, a fan. And as long as we're admitting things, I used to be VP of his company. So, I know whereof I speak when I tell you this:

If you've never read Tom Peters, or if you've never heard of Tom Peters (for shame, for shame), do not hesitate another nanosecond: BUY THIS BOOK and ramp up your own personal pursuit of excellence in everything you do.

And I do mean everything.

Wow...I don't where to begin. This is my first book from Tom Peters and I'm totally overwhelmed. It is impossible to digest everything at once so I am going to read one section a day.
This is a kind of book you wish you had read when you were young. Don't wait until the last moment of your life. Read it now.

"If not EXCELLENCE, what? If not EXCELLENCE now, when?"