Categories: Articles

Tom Peters' Gem

Yesterday was a good day. I love boxes and packages from the mailman. This little box had an amazing gift in it. It was Tom Peters’ latest book, Re-Imagine! Business Excellence In A Disruptive Age, on CD. Well, more specifically, 7 CDs and over 8.5 hours. The whole text, unabridged, all read by Tom. This would be a great roadtrip! As I listened to CD 1 on my drive home from the office, Tom hit a nerve with his version of the difference between “uncertainty” and “ambiguity.” I liked it so much that when I came to the office this morning, I looked it up in the book and re-typed it. I hope I don’t get my butt sued, but here it is:

“Uncertainty: You work in an exploration department at Exxon Mobile. You punch a hole in the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. Knowing what you know about geology and geophysics, you can predict that the odds of finding hydrocarbons where you drill that hole is between 57.5 and 64.5 percent.

That’s uncertainty. You don’t know everything, but you know something, and you know how what you do know relates to what you don’t know.

Ambiguity: You find yourself asking: Where’s the Gulf of Mexico? What’s a hydrocarbon? Who cares? That’s Ambiguity.

You don’t know enough even to know if you are asking the right questions. And that’s where we are now. Back at square one.”

Awesome.

If you want the link for where to by this 7 CD set, here you go: http://www.nmaudio.com – it’s on sale for $27.97 from New Millennium Audio & Press

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.