Rakesh Wadhwa:

You've worked with many CEOs, many entrepreneurs, and a lots of great people. What do you think, their biggest challenge or challenges have been when it comes in the way of attaining excellence for their organization? Because the messages that you've been saying is very simple. What, in your experience are the issue of the challenges that they face to do what you're saying?

Tom Peters:

Well, their biggest challenge is impossible to me. And what I mean by that is the best way to have an extraordinary response to that is happening in 2020 is to have done your job right in 2010, as you brought people on board. I'm working with a company I've worked with them for a long time. They've always taken care of their people. They still had to have significant layoffs. They've handled them brilliantly. They've gone into their personal savings to help people and stretch things.

I'm going to change the subject without changing the subject. One way to react better in situations like this Is to have women running the company instead of men. There's so much research that says women are better leaders. And an awful lot of that comes from the fact that they tend to pay more attention to people and they aren't so bloody competitive and wanting to make 2 cents more than the person next door. So I have argued long and loud - more women in leadership positions. It's a great way to make money.

I’ll go back to my earlier point. Lets suppose You're on my team. I know a little bit about your family over the years because we've had chats in the hallway, even though you're three levels down in the organization from me. And I really want tell people their first responsibility is to their family. Their first responsibility is to stay healthy themselves. And I want to tell you as your boss, please, please, please take care of your family first. When I say that to you, I mean it. You're going to be so much more productive an employee over the next five years, because you will remember until your last breath that Tom said to me, “Take care of grandmother”