Want to learn the ideas in Touchpoints better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Touchpoints by Douglas R. Conant, Mette Norgaard here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Touchpoints

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Touchpoints, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Douglas R. Conant, Mette Norgaard.

1-Page Summary of Touchpoints

“The Action Is in the Interaction”

Leaders often try to avoid the “pesky” interruptions that they’re constantly bombarded with, but instead of seeing them as a nuisance, leaders should embrace these interactions because they are what leaders do and offer opportunities for leadership. Every interaction is an opportunity to influence someone. No matter how small or insignificant it seems, each encounter presents a chance for leadership.

TouchPoints are short interactions between individuals. They can be planned or unplanned, casual or carefully choreographed, and they may last only a few minutes or several days. TouchPoints occur in the cafeteria, on the production floor, in conference rooms, via telephone, email, and text message. All TouchPoints contain three variables that overlap:

1. An issue is a problem, question or decision that often needs to be addressed immediately. It affects the entire company and may be an internal or external concern. The stakeholders involved in this issue are also important because they have a common interest in it.

2. A leader is someone who brings magic to the moment. They assist in contextualizing issues, demonstrate determination and show assurance about what comes next.

Listen to what the other party says. If it’s your issue, use TouchPoints (an approach developed by Tom Peters) to connect with your employees and make them understand that you’re on their side. If it is someone else’s issue, teach them how to be better at making decisions in the future. When both parties share responsibility for a problem, use TouchPoints to demonstrate the benefits of teamwork and partnership. Good news travels fast; bad news travels even faster so choose wisely when using TouchPoints because they have an exponential effect: after one person tells another about something good or bad that happened between you two, others may tell people in their network about those interactions as well.”

Head, Heart and Hands

Leading other leaders is a great way to inspire people and create change. The higher up you go in the chain of command, the more people will watch what you do and how you handle yourself. To stand out as a leader, it’s important to make each interaction count by combining three aspects:

1. Leaders must be able to use their heads, hearts and hands in order to maximize the potential of every TouchPoint. They should identify what’s really going on with a particular situation, put group goals before their own and ask others to do the same. Leaders should also know why they lead and who they are as people.

If you lead without any of these three attributes, you’ll seem irrational or phony. If you have all three, but don’t use them in the right way, then it will appear as if you’re incompetent. No one is perfect at this all the time. However, by using this advice to gauge your progress and try to improve each time, you can be more effective when leading people.

Head: “The Commitment to Inquiry”

You have your own ideas about leadership, but you probably haven’t organized them into a model. You should create your own personal leadership model based on how you see human nature and the nature of change in organizations.

Campbell Soup Company’s CEO Douglas Conant created the Campbell Leadership Model at a time when the company was facing serious decline. He reviewed contemporary leadership theories and analyzed his previous experiences in order to come up with this model, which is six-element cyclical and self-reinforcing. The model is used by top executives at Campbell to handle their TouchPoints. To create your own leadership model, follow these three steps: