From 1966 to 1970, he served in the United States Navy, making two deployments to Vietnam as a Navy Seabee, then later working in the Pentagon. From 1973 to 1974, he worked in the White House as a senior drug-abuse advisor, during the Nixon administration. Peters has acknowledged the influence of military strategist Colonel John Boyd on his later writing. From 1974 to 1981, Peters worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, becoming a partner and Organization Effectiveness practice leader in 1979. In 1981, he left McKinsey to become an independent consultant. In 1990, Peters was referred to in a British Department of Trade and Industry publication as one of the world's Quality Gurus. In 1995, the New York Times referred to Peters as one of the top three business experts in the highest demand as a speaker along with Daniel Burrus and Roger Blackwell. In 2017, the Thinkers50 awarded Peters with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his paving the way for the 'thought leadership' and 'business book industries'.
''In Search of Excellence''
The publication of the popular business book In Search of Excellence in 1982 marked a turning point in Peters' career. Peters states that directly after graduating with a PhD from Stanford in 1977, and returning to McKinsey, the new managing director, Ron Daniel, handed him a "fascinating assignment." Motivated by the new ideas coming from Bruce Henderson's Boston Consulting Group, Daniel noted that businesses often failed to effectively implement new strategies, so Peters "was asked to look at 'organization effectiveness' and 'implementation issues' in an inconsequential offshoot project nested in McKinsey's rather offbeat San Francisco office." In Search of Excellence was published in 1982. It became a bestseller, gaining exposure in the United States at a national level when a series of television specials based on the book and hosted by Peters appeared on PBS. The primary ideas espoused solving business problems with as little business-process overhead as possible, and empowering decision-makers at multiple levels of a company. The December 2001 issue of Fast Company quoted Peters admitting that he and Waterman had falsified the underlying data for In Search of Excellence. He is quoted as saying, " This is pretty small beer, but for what it's worth, okay, I confess: We faked the data. A lot of people suggested it at the time." He later insisted that this was untrue and that he was the victim of an "aggressive headline."
Later work
In 1987 Peters published Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution. In later books Peters has encouraged personal responsibility in response to the "New Economy". More recent books are The Little Big Things, released in March 2010 and "The Excellence Dividend," released in April 2018. Peters currently lives in South Dartmouth, MA with his wife Susan Sargent, and continues to write and speak about personal and business empowerment and problem-solving methodologies. His namesake company is based in Essex in the UK.
Works
1982 – In Search of Excellence
1985 – A Passion for Excellence
1987 – Thriving on Chaos
1992 – Liberation Management
1994 – The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations
1997 – The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness
1999 - The Reinventing Work Series 50List Books
* 1999 – The Brand You 50: Or: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an "Employee" into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!
* 1999 - The Project50: Fifty Ways to Transform Every "Task" into a Project That Matters!
* 1999 - The Professional Service Firm50: Fifty Ways to Transform Your "Department" into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks are Passion and Innovation!
2003 – Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age
2005 – Talent
2005 – Leadership
2005 – Design
2005 – Trends
2010 – The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence
2018 - ''The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last
