Rating: 
Summary: exit the vulcan
Review: How far are you willing to go? This book answers the question in the affirmative, and for that I thank it. I was eight years old when I saw the episode about the killer bees. There was a man, I think he was a Mexican man or perhaps Latin American of some kind, driving a tractor, and the bees stung him and stung him to death. Even if you do not believe in Sasquatch, you must believe in the bees. Since those puerile dreams of childhood, I have molted into a newer and far more fragile dream; it is called capitalism. I spoke to a client today about a major decision. Often I was forced to refer to this book. Its wisdom is impeccable. The woman, for it was a woman, referred to its "gnomic insight," while outside the window the trees kept their insignificant peace. How I loved these companies, before they fell into flames! You did not choose these stars, this earth, this duplicitous speech, but you can choose to buy this book, and so you must.
Rating: 
Summary: Ahead of its time, but a little behind ours
Review: I bought this book after reading many others, some of which referenced this book as "groundbreaking", "a landmark", and the like. While this book makes some good observations, it makes critical mistakes in oversimplifying a lot of its "evidence". Yet it fails to find any ideas that simplify its "eight basic principles". As an example of a mistaken oversimplification, the book claims that "rationality" always yields negative, i.e. pessimistic, business forecasts, but this fails to understand that projections are guided by assumptions, that in turn are guided by management. Companies that penalize those whose forecasts are too optimistic will encourage its planners to use negative assumptions. Companies that don't, won't. Many of the "excellent companies" have seen very bad times or were driven out of business completely in the years following the book's release. I think that shows that the authors were missing quite a bit in understanding the real nature of excellence. Fortunately, in subsequent years authors such as John Case (Open-Book Management) and Jack Stack (The Great Game of Business) have hit upon a much simpler yet more complete model for excellence. Not only does their model explain what is correct about The Search for Excellence, but it also explains the correct elements in many management ideas since including "reengineering", "TQM", "Empowerment", and "Six Sigma". I highly recommend their books instead of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Ahead of its time, but a little behind ours
Review: I bought this book after reading many others, some of which referenced this book as "groundbreaking", "a landmark", and the like. While this book makes some good observations, it makes critical mistakes in oversimplifying a lot of its "evidence". Yet it fails to find any ideas that simplify its "eight basic principles". As an example of a mistaken oversimplification, the book claims that "rationality" always yields negative, i.e. pessimistic, business forecasts, but this fails to understand that projections are guided by assumptions, that in turn are guided by management. Companies that penalize those whose forecasts are too optimistic will encourage its planners to use negative assumptions. Companies that don't, won't. Many of the "excellent companies" have seen very bad times or were driven out of business completely in the years following the book's release. I think that shows that the authors were missing quite a bit in understanding the real nature of excellence. Fortunately, in subsequent years authors such as John Case (Open-Book Management) and Jack Stack (The Great Game of Business) have hit upon a much simpler yet more complete model for excellence. Not only does their model explain what is correct about The Search for Excellence, but it also explains the correct elements in many management ideas since including "reengineering", "TQM", "Empowerment", and "Six Sigma". I highly recommend their books instead of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Ahead of its time, but a little behind ours
Review: I bought this book after reading many others, some of which referenced this book as "groundbreaking", "a landmark", and the like. While this book makes some good observations, it makes critical mistakes in oversimplifying a lot of its "evidence". Yet it fails to find any ideas that simplify its "eight basic principles". As an example of a mistaken oversimplification, the book claims that "rationality" always yields negative, i.e. pessimistic, business forecasts, but this fails to understand that projections are guided by assumptions, that in turn are guided by management. Companies that penalize those whose forecasts are too optimistic will encourage its planners to use negative assumptions. Companies that don't, won't. Many of the "excellent companies" have seen very bad times or were driven out of business completely in the years following the book's release. I think that shows that the authors were missing quite a bit in understanding the real nature of excellence. Fortunately, in subsequent years authors such as John Case (Open-Book Management) and Jack Stack (The Great Game of Business) have hit upon a much simpler yet more complete model for excellence. Not only does their model explain what is correct about The Search for Excellence, but it also explains the correct elements in many management ideas since including "reengineering", "TQM", "Empowerment", and "Six Sigma". I highly recommend their books instead of this one.
Rating: 
Summary: selecting on the dependent variable
Review: I don't have much to add to the other reviews here on the content, but as a couple of reviewers here have pointed out, there's a problem with the way they reached their conclusions. They chose a series of metrics as indicators of "excellence": they ranked companies on these metrics to identify a sample of "excellent companies": they then profiled these companies to find common features. Statisticians call this "selecting on the dependent variable": all excellent companies might have a certain feature, but you can only say that the feature has something to do with their excellence if non-excellent companies don't have it. The features that Peters picks out might be important, but the research they do doesn't in any way prove that. There was a follow-up piece of research done some years later (not by the authors) in a paper called "excellence revisited", which argued that excellence was basically a temporary phenomenon, and that even these companies reverted to the mean. This looked at the "excellent companies" subsequent performance and found that on average, they had deteriorated significantly in all measures of performance. They then picked a sample of "non-excellent companies" using the same ranking criteria as the original book did at the time that the original research was done. Sure enough, these on average improved significantly in performance.
Rating:
Summary: An amazingly different perspective. Hi Adam and Kevin!
Review: I loved it. I began reading it for an assignment, but finished it early because I was hooked on it. And all because of inspiration from Adam, kevin, and of course, Mr. Peters.
Rating:
Summary: The search continues
Review: I read this book again after a gap of nearly 20 years. The world has significantly changed since then and so have the fortunes of many of the "excellent" companies listed in this book. Some have continued to excel, some have made a comeback after facing tough times and some have ceased to exist. Excellence is neither permanent nor an assurance for "lived happily thereafter" ending for a corporate fable. As often mentioned in most management books, the only thing that is permanent is change, and change has been rapid and unforgiving in the last two decades. In this context, is this one time business bestseller flawed in its study and its findings ?. The authors themselves answer this question in their opening remarks - "Authors' Note: Excellence 2003" in this new paperback edition. Theory first. There is a solid attack on the Rational Model ( over emphasis on quantitative approaches to management ) in American business schools which the authors feel is a main cause for the decline of American companies in the third quarter of the twentieth century. The understanding of the human side and aligning people with the Organization's goals through a deep sense of respect and involvement is at the core of success at the excellent companies is the next hypothesis. In their search for excellence, the research leads to eight prominent attributes that are common across the best run companies. All these attributes have direct and significant link to this aspect of the human side of enterprise. The excellent companies have focussed consciously and consistently on rigorously practicing several of the eight attributes. Failure to focus on these have led to setbacks in subsequent years. An outstanding athlete cannot be expected to win gold at all the Olympics in his lifetime. Athletes age and so do companies say the authors. But is there a prescription against aging for companies that are committed to excellence ? This book is liable for criticism on the following counts : - Too much of theory in the first four chapters, mostly borrowed from other earlier management gurus
- Descriptive and repetitive
- Data insufficiency for backing conclusions
- Sample does not cover all industries and restricted to American companies
- Talks of the past and ignores prescriptions for the future
- Attributes need to be ranked and revisited periodically and perhaps a new list might emerge Several books have been written on this topic since this classic was first published in 1982. Many have addressed the points listed above. But this ground breaking book continues to be the pathfinder in all that has followed. Go back to the analogy of the athlete. A gold is a gold at any contest and this book deserves one for its own excellence.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting even to a high-school student
Review: I read this book as an assignment for business management class, but I ended up finishing it for myself! Hello Mr. Higgins!
Rating:
Summary: This book becomes more valuable as time goes by.
Review: In Search of Excellence is fun to read because we all grew up with the companies described, thought they were wonderful, and now know that many of them stumbled. The greatest challenge is to think about these formerly successful companies to understand why they are not still excellent. A lot has to do with the ability of companies to adapt to a more rapidly changing world. Past insights are most wonderful because they teach us something about how to create a more successful future.
Rating:
Summary: Best Practice
Review: In Search of Exellence is benchmarking made right. Full of tidbits on how some of America's finest companies are run. Granted, some of them are now defunct(Digital? Wang?)but the parts about IBM, 3M, P&G and HP are still relevant. It's funny how so many companies try to imitate but cannot perfect the best practices highlighted here. For example, MBWA (Management by wandering about) popularized by HP was tried by my company once. It did not work because the employees felt that management was using it as an excuse to check up on them. A truly excellent book but be careful if you do decide to try some of their advice. To each his own.
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