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Summary: Packed With Knowledge!
Review: "In Search of Excellence" presents the results of a research project that authors Tom Peters and Robert Waterman conducted from 1979 to 1980. They investigated the qualities common to the best-run companies in America. After selecting a sample of 43 companies from six major industries, they examined the firms' practices closely. Although they did this study almost 20 years ago, their results provide a model of eight core principles for excellence that are still true for companies today. These eight principles may seem like common sense, but this research was the first to systematically identify these qualities. This excellent book is a management classic due to well-done research. Many stories illustrate its key points. We [...] recommend this pivotal book to everyone in business.
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Summary: The best management book ever (IMHO)
Review: All other gurus I have ever read have a serious flaw in their presentations: they wrongly believe the world, business and people are rational. That is why the advice of such gurus as Peter Drucker is useless in the real world. The only breath of fresh air among management consultants or gurus is Tom Peters, and he is relevant precisely because he describes the real world: it is more emotional than rational. He mentions that the organization chart is not the company and it is true. The organization chart is a rational model but in the real life of corporations most of what happens has nothing to do with the chain of command. Why has re-engineering failed so blatantly? It is a very good rational model but it doesn't take into consideration that people will fight to death against being re-engineered out of their job. In Search of Excellence is an antidote for all the absurd management fads that come and go.
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Summary: Some good info, but not worth a buy
Review: Although the book has some interesting points it is not as easy to read as let's say "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Moreover, as others have pointed out some(all?) of the information in the book is NOT based on real data. This casts a shaddow of doubt over the entire book. In short, the book may be worth a glance if you can get the book real cheap, but in my humble opinion north worth buying.
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Summary: Ability to Change and Adapt Quickly is a Must for Success
Review: Although this book has become a teenager, it still reminds me of the fun of childhood by reading about all the successes those companies had in their "growing up" years and the problems that many had as they matured and reached older age. This is not a life cycle book, but one that points out some things that caused success for a specific company at a specific point in time. There is a lot to be learned by looking into the cultures and values of those companies. Unfortunately, the eight principles of success culled from this study do not guarantee a wonderful future, or even fleeting success for today's companies. This book is worth rereading because it makes you think about why so many of these companies fell so far. A number of recent studies indicate that the ability to change and adapt quickly is what is needed for long term success. Urgency is key. To prepare for future success, I recommend THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION by Mitchell, Coles, and Metz. It motivates managers to develop new ideas and ideal practices that will leave you better off in any future environment.
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Summary: Brilliant Book That Add's Luster To Every Reader's Thinking
Review: Brilliance begins and often ends in the most fundamental concepts. In search of excellence makes the point well in the business context, where the authors discovered from intense study that the best companies are the best in executing the most basic business tasks. And, the most important product brilliant companies make is not something physical rolling off an assembly line. Rather, it is their thinking. This book, and other more recent works such as Why Didn't I Think of That? - Think the Unthinkable, give us the critical thinking tools we need to execute business basics better than our competitors, and on occasion, to come up with truly innovative ideas that transform business altogether. In Search of Excellence shows us how to find answers when others do not, leaving others asking the critical question "Why Didn't I Think of That?"
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Summary: Performance Enhancing Business Strategies
Review: Development of business practices designed to enhance performance is emphasized. Topics discussed include employee motivational tools, morale boosting, customer satisfaction, and management techniques. Lengthy business discussions are used as examples sporadically throughout the book which may result in the reader's interest fading. In summary, the book encourages business success through the incorporation of basic business practices into daily operations. "1001 Ways to Reward Employees", "Six Sigma", or books authored by John Maxwell may be of interest to the reader.
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Summary: Still relevant today
Review: Even though Tom Peters admitted in a Fast Company article that some of the data in the book was faked, I still think it is worth reading because it discusses some key concepts. Ideas such as sticking to what you're best at, achieving productivity through people, and being close to the customer are simple, timeless, and most certainly worth studying. Some argue that several of the companies that were deemed by the study to be excellent back then are no longer excellent and therefore that hurts the credibility of the book. It's a valid point to an extent but history is full of examples of companies that were once great and then faltered for whatever reason. The key is to figure out what the best companies are doing while they are on top and the book discusses this. One part of the book I didn't like was the initial part of it where they discuss a lot of historical management theory. If the book were published today, I seriously doubt any editor would let them include that part since it's not very readable. Personally, I don't want to have to weed through too many boring parts before I get to the good material. In summary, I feel "In Search of Excellence" is by far the best Tom Peters book in print and worth reading. Greg Blencoe
Author, The Ten Commandments for Managers
Rating:
Summary: Still relevant today
Review: Even though Tom Peters admitted in a Fast Company article that some of the data in the book was faked, I still think it is worth reading because it discusses some key concepts. Ideas such as sticking to what you're best at, achieving productivity through people, and being close to the customer are simple, timeless, and most certainly worth studying. Some argue that several of the companies that were deemed by the study to be excellent back then are no longer excellent and therefore that hurts the credibility of the book. It's a valid point to an extent but history is full of examples of companies that were once great and then faltered for whatever reason. The key is to figure out what the best companies are doing while they are on top and the book discusses this. One part of the book I didn't like was the initial part of it where they discuss a lot of historical management theory. If the book were published today, I seriously doubt any editor would let them include that part since it's not very readable. Personally, I don't want to have to weed through too many boring parts before I get to the good material. In summary, I feel "In Search of Excellence" is by far the best Tom Peters book in print and worth reading. Greg Blencoe
Author, The Ten Commandments for Managers
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Summary: The first management blockbuster and still a classic
Review: Few people can lay claim to having created an industry. TomPeters can. Tom Peters is widely credited with having created themanagement guru industry. Before him it is said that "management thinkers wrote articles in academic journals, gave the occasional seminar, and worked as consultants for a few large corporations". The biggest blockbusters sold under five hundred thousand books. 'In Search of Excellence', co-authored with Bob Waterman, is Tom Peters first book and sold over 6 million copies. Its success surprised their colleagues at McKinsey, who had laughed at the idea that Peters and Waterman would keep the royalties, "should the book sell 50 000 copies". Two decades later, 'In Search of Excellence' is still one of the most readable management books. The eight characteristics of excellent companies, a bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands-on values driven, stick to the knitting, simple form and lean staff, simultaneous loose-tight properties are all still relevant and still ignored today. It is written clearly, painting vivid pictures with anecdotes and examples from real companies. Peters went on to become a megastar in the field of management entertaining, able to charge up to $80 000 for a one day show. The management guru industry is estimated to exceed a billion dollars and management books, including several by Peters himself, now regularly find their way into the best seller list. Peters'later writings have sometimes inspired and sometimes puzzled a new generation of managers. This book is a classic. Great companies struggle to remain on top over an extended period. But the lessons learned endure. END
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Summary: a'Rockwell' painting of a business culture of yesteryear?
Review: How are great companies managed? What leads to their growth and sustained dominance of the marketplace? Peters and Waterman asked this question in 1982 and came up with answers which should have provided a scientific verification to the most idealistic prophets of capitalism. The answers were simple and constructive. Generally, *Define yourself and your structure, then stick to the knitting. *Nurture and reward employee excellence. Provide a climate of security and creativity in which employees developed loyalty and understanding of corporate values, and were in turn developed to their full potential. *Establish long term customer relationships based on trust, high quality and value in products and service. *Re-invest in and re-invent your company continuously within a defined sense of mission and social purpose. Peters's and Waterman's project was to find what made the most successful companies of their time tick. In 1982 the hi-teck revolution, notably in personal computing, had just barely moved out of Steve Job's garage. A longstanding equilibrium between business prerogative and government intervention in issues of social equity and regulation of commerce, trade, workplace and markets had been in place since the Second World War. But this was under increasing pressure from well organized and financed corporate lobbies. Unsurprisingly at the end of this era of steady growth and popularly shared wealth the authors came up with a very positive take on corporate excellence and resultant success. Certainly some of these ideals are still ascendent in the most dynamic of business companies, the entrepreneurial sector. The case with bricks and mortar 'old' economic productive sector has been somewhat different. It is interesting to note that Peters wrote a book a few years later called 'Thriving on Chaos' in which he tried to come to grips with a commercial culture which was increasingly unpredictable and exploitive. One which seemed to promote short term pragmatism with respect to all except the shareholders. A group whose dictates were expressed in increasingly interrelated organizations. Their relationship with the corporation's social 'stakeholders' was anonymous, amoral and based solely on immediate performance. They were interested in short term and bloated returns, uninterested in traditions, enculturated values, long term stability or the wider community. Capital being far more fluid than industrial infrastructure, penalties were placed on industry which was not willing to chart the basest course of exploitation of employees, currencies, customers, nations. This rewarded the investor with a high voltage, quick return, who then moved on. Jobs started fleeing to the most desperate labour markets offshore. Free market ideology skewed the playing field, took the referee away, giving the edge to those who played rough and dirty. Currencies were now held hostage to an unsupervised supranational casinos at the behest of a corporate organism interested only in its own aggrandizement at the expense of the weak. MBA's provided a stilted logic to rationalize it all. Has spectre of ungoverned free markets robbed corporations of the options of operating like good corporate citizens? Has it forced them to match and out maneuver the most cunning and manipulative of their competitors? Is capital's old predatory ways reasserting itself, as Marx always said it would? It seems the builders who saw social responsibility as the greatest saving grace of capitalism are being methodically erased by a brutal new species in a regenerate jungle. This book may indeed be a retrospective of a business culture that seems to be dying, and who knows what society will be in the ethos that is replacing it.
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