In Search of Excellence

Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

Tom Peters, Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

Publisher: Warner / Grand Central Publishing / Hachette, 1982, 360 pages

ISBN: 0-446-38507-7

Keywords: Strategy

Last modified: April 16, 2021, 11:15 p.m.

There is an Art of American Management — and it works!

To discover the secrets of our "native art", Thomas Peters, an alumnus of the management consulting firm of McKinsey & Company who runs his own consulting firm, and Robert Waterman, now a director of McKinsey, studied forty-three successful American companies. Some of these organizations, such as Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, specialize in consumer goods; some like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, are in high technology; some, such as Delta Airlines and McDonald's, are in services. Shared by all of them are eight basic principles of management — action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices — that are readily transferable. Here they are, amply illustrated with anecdotes and examples from the experiences of these best-run companies to make them accessible and practical for you to use.

  • Part I: The Saving Remnant
    1. Successful American Companies
  • Part II: Toward New Theory
    1. The Rational Model
    2. Man Waiting for Motivation
  • Part III: Back to Basics
    1. Managing Ambiguity and Paradox
    2. A Bias for Action
    3. Close to the Customer
    4. Autonomy and Entreprenurship
    5. Productivity Through People
    6. Hands-On, Value-Driven
    7. Stick to the Knitting
    8. Simple Form, Lean Staff
    9. Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties

Reviews

In Search of Excellence

Reviewed by Roland Buresund

Disappointing *** (3 out of 10)

Last modified: May 21, 2007, 3:06 a.m.

Historically interesting, otherwise, skip it.

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