In Search of Excellence
THOMAS J. PETERS AND ROBERT H. WATERMAN JR.
Reviewed by Todd
In Search of Excellence marked a turning point in the evolution of business books, and so it makes the appropriate starting point for our recommended books on strategy. Prior to its 1982 release, historians and academics controlled the discussion about the organization of business, and to no one’s surprise, their reportings were often dry and outdated. With this book, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman popularized the exploration of organizational success and created a contemporary conversation that was accessible to a wider audience. The importance of this title in the narrative arc of business thought, as well as the findings themselves, cannot be overstated.
Peters and Waterman first write a capsule history of organizational theory on their way to making a broader case for how organizations must be designed. The arc starts at the turn of the century with political economist Max Weber and mechanical engineer Frederick Taylor. Most are familiar with Taylor for his popularization of time studies and the 1911 publication of The Principles of Scientific Management, but it was Weber who suggested bureaucracy as the optimal form for human organization. Then, in Strategy and Structure (1962), Alfred Chandler presented the idea that businesses should organize themselves in response to the strictures of the marketplace.
In writing In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman arrived at a conclusion about the success of an organization that couldn’t be more different from those early theories on business organization: people are irrational and the structures that organize them must account for that. This argument was 180 degrees counter to the historical modeling of business organizations after the military approach, in which managers fixated on the control of their homogenous teams while following the established five-year strategic plan. Instead, Peters and Waterman advocate humanistic values, including meaning, a small amount of control, and positive reinforcement as a postmilitaristic model. The conclusion is that the soft stuff matters. Culture matters. People matter.
Through this lens, Peters and Waterman spent five years researching such stalwart companies as Boeing, HP, and 3M, which engaged their employees as vital contributors to the success of the company and not simply as rank and file. The second half of In Search of Excellence reveals eight principles of organizational behavior gleaned from conversations with these companies:
- A Bias for Action
- Stay Close to the Customer
- Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
- Productivity through People
- Hands-On, Value Driven
- Stick to the Knitting
- Simple Form, Lean Staff
- Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties
Over the twenty-five years since this book was released, others have taken on the challenge of finding the magical model for business success, and as a result, these ideas may look familiar. However, they deserve to be looked at, without preconceptions, as trailblazing concepts providing a prescription for business excellence, and for how surprisingly seldom they are adopted.
“In observing the excellent companies, and specifically the way they interact with customers, what we found most striking was the consistent presence of obsession. This characteristically occurred as a seemingly unjustifiable overcommitment to some form of quality, reliability, or service.”
In contrast to earlier management texts, In Search of Excellence provides a reading experience to be enjoyed, not slogged through. Peters and Waterman write from the viewpoint of passionate observers, and the result is the near-equivalent to sitting in a conference room and listening to these executives recount their tales. The enthusiasm is contagious. (Try listening to the audio sometime with Peters narrating if you really want contagious enthusiasm.) This quality imparts a certain realism to the book that will inspire immediate new behaviors. The book has acquired a historical level of interest, like reading from the journal of an industrial archaeologist. It reported on Wal-Mart fifteen years before its emergence into retail dominance; it talks about the HP Way as a cultural positive; and, before Google, 3M was held up as the company that encouraged employees to spend a portion of their time pursing their passions.
In Search of Excellence advances a timeless vision of business organization: employees—with all of their irrational quirks and natural craziness—are embraced for those very same characteristics. Peters and Waterman posit a truism that has only become more established with time—that the human variable is the fuel that runs the organization. TS
In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies, Collins Business Essentials Edition, Hardcover 2006, ISBN 9780060548780
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taking a leadership leap | EVEN MORE: Re-Imagine! by Tom
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