7. Thomas J Peters

7. THOMAS J PETERS Tom Peters was born on November 7, 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland. A writer on business management practices, Peters is best-known for, In Search of Excellence, co-authored with Robert H. Waterman, Jr. He went to Severn School for high school and attended Cornell University, receiving a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1965, and a master's degree in 1966. He then studied business at Stanford Business School, receiving an MBA and PhD. In 2004, he also received an honorary doctorate from the State University of Management in Moscow. From 1974 to 1981, Peters worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and then in 1981, he went solo and became an independent consultant. # According to Peters, excellence in business depends on eight ingredients. Activism, with people who 'do it, fix it (and) try it' # Excellent companies 'learn from the people they serve'. # They promote entrepreneurship and autonomy # Management learns from a 'hands-on' approach # Workers are valued as the key to achieve productivity # Excellent companies stick to their knitting, exploiting their core competencies and not pursuing wild goose chases # They keep their form simple and their staff lean; # They know how to be simultaneously tight-fitting and expansive. Books that he wrote: # A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference (1985) # Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution (1987) # Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties (1992) # The Brand You 50 (1999) Image: W Chan Kim (L) and Renee Mauborgne (R)