In search of excellence
for over three years To discover the secrets of the art of management, Peters and Waterman studied more than 43 successful American companies. The companies specialized in a number of areas: consumer goods, high technology, and services. What he discovered was that regardless of how different each company was, they shared eight basic principles of management that anyone can use on their way to success. Here they are, amply illustrated with anecdotes and examples from the experiences of the best-run companies in the world.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
32mentions
26people
2007–2025years
9% recommend53% neutral38% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Thomas, J.P. & Robert, H.W Jr 2004. "In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies", Harper Paperbacks.
Ignore what the critics say about this book because I think this book's strengths is in their case studies on the company cultures and qualities that made them successful decades ago. This is more about how to treat people and direct a company, while providing examples of how these companies had dedicated passionate micro teams who were their "lean startup" champions that drove their innovation and success.
- Let's see.. heres a few I'd recommend....
Good to Great by Jim Collins One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters
- Hum. This article turned out to be targeted at big company types, not entrepreneurs. Innovation at big companies almost never works anyway. The authors of "In Search of Excellence" did excellent research on just that, and found that inventions which had big impacts almost always came from companies with less than a few dozen people.
- And are often complete fiction. See: In Search of Excellence
- I read so many business books, and they are hard to get rid of after you have amassed a large collection of several hundred. On reflection, many seem like crap, or maybe a good few points what could be summarized in a few pages but somehow turned into a long book. I'm still glad I read them, and the jewels have always made it worth the adventure. I really like looking back at the discredited books I've read and in hindsight, asked myself how I was fooled at the time in not detecting the the weaknesses in the books. It has always been a point of reflection to improve these detection skills when reading new material. For me, at the time of reading, the books: "In Search of Excellence" and "Think and Grow Rich" seemed great, but in hindsight, "What was I thinking".
- There is even a name for it: Gemba Walk, a LEAN practice.
Management self-help guru Tom Peters (of In Search of Excellence fame) built a whole method around it, called Management by Walking Around. It differs from Gemba Walking in lacking a specific focus.
