Anyone with an aversion to overuse of exclamation marks or random capital letters should think twice before opening this book. It is littered with them, as well as odd words picked out in bigger, bold fonts. Each device is used to underline some wacky piece of thinking, unusual idea or meaningful insight. As Peters states in a rambling introduction "appearance is a non-trivial part of the overall assessment of the substance".

At first, you may think there is not much substance here. But the annoying thing is that there are hundreds of nuggets. Pissed-off people are, says Peters, the best source of innovation. In which case, this book will make people more innovative, although maybe not in the way intended.

Nominally, this is another Peters riff on excellence, the theme on which he has built his consultancy practice. But this is really a book about marketing, customer service and product and service design. Beyond its wackiness, the message is that the little things companies do to help their customers and fellow employees often have more impact on success than the big strategic ideas.