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11th out of 152 books
—
104 voters
In Search of Excellence
The "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), "In Search of Excellence" has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table.
Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, "In Search of Excellence" describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating, people-or...more
Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, "In Search of Excellence" describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating, people-or...more
Paperback, 384 pages
Published
April 15th 2004
by Profile Business
(first published January 1st 1982)
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Why I Read this Book: I was interested to know what it is that makes companies excellent. If I plan to do any type of work at all, be it start a business or work for one, it is fundamental to understand how the great companies of the world have done it.
Review:
Most of you have probably heard of McKinsey & Company, Inc. For those of you who have not, let me quickly note that McKinsey & Company is the most prestigious top tier management and strategic consulting firm in this world. The majo...more
Review:
Most of you have probably heard of McKinsey & Company, Inc. For those of you who have not, let me quickly note that McKinsey & Company is the most prestigious top tier management and strategic consulting firm in this world. The majo...more
The timing for having read this book, In Search of Excellence I was on my own search for it somewhere between shoulder pads for women's suits and a dresser drawer I had popping full of panty hose. Curiously it was also about the same time my mom wanted me to write a personal request to Lee Iacocca of Chrysler and ask him for a personal scholarship to help pay my college semester after my family moved yet again. She had just bought a LeBaron covertible. She was almost fully convinced this would b...more
Way back in the 1980s few people in business gave much thought to what makes an excellent business. Peters and Waterman conducted research on companies they identified as excellent. What they found were some common threads among the truly excellent companies.
Being counted as an excellent company today is no guarantee that the company will be excellent in the future. The bar of excellence is constantly being raised and, in today’s economy, lowered.
If you are a business student, this is among the...more
Being counted as an excellent company today is no guarantee that the company will be excellent in the future. The bar of excellence is constantly being raised and, in today’s economy, lowered.
If you are a business student, this is among the...more
It's amazing how many people have read this classic Peters and Waterman book. It's even more amazing then how most companies have simply ignored the lessons illustrated within, only to continue on their dismal path of mediocrity. The basic lesson to be learned is that if your company religiously follows the core tenets outlined in the book, then your company will be the leader in your industry, because you will be the only company to do so. So why is this circa 1980's book on this list? Because...more
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If you have read Tom Peters' other books before you jump in on this, you would probably be thinking "Thank Goodness he's writing this with Robert Waterman."
Without the distracting "designs" that Tom Peters have for his other books, this book is a lot easier to read, in my personal opinion.
In this book, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman list out 8 characteristics of excellent, innovative companies. I believe this book will be helpful for senior managers to mull over, as some of the ideas may seem "r...more
Without the distracting "designs" that Tom Peters have for his other books, this book is a lot easier to read, in my personal opinion.
In this book, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman list out 8 characteristics of excellent, innovative companies. I believe this book will be helpful for senior managers to mull over, as some of the ideas may seem "r...more
After leaving my position as CEO of a small IT company after its new owner, an arrogant Wharton MBA, made my life hell, I decided to spend some time revisiting the old time business classics. While "In Search of Excellence, Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies" is truly an oldie, with several of the cited companies no longer in existence, and most no longer "great" companies, I think many of the concepts hold true: Be close to the customer, treat employees like adults, small is beautiful, t...more
This merits its status as a classic. Twenty years later, it's still completely relevant. I also observed so many examples I've read in multiple more recent sources. Apparently, business and self-help authors have all read this book. Examples include the Hawthorn effect, the Sam Walton doughnut story, and the shock therapy experiment on authority. Also noteworthy are how many of these best-run companies are no longer leaders today (K-Mart) or have gone completely out of business (Western Electric...more
Excellent book. I think it's considered a reference not just a nice book to read. This book discusses eight basics or themes that had proved, as per the authors, prevalent amongst `excellent' companies more than 30 years ago; namely- A bias for action, Close to the customer, Autonomy and entrepreneurship, Productivity through people, Hands-on value-driven, Stick to the knitting, Simple form lean staff, and Simultaneous loose-tight properties. The book provides fantastic and useful guidelines tha...more
One of the better business books out there. Still relevant 30 years after it was written, providing me much insight and wisdoem on how to motivate and lead by Dr. Peters study of excellent companies and why they succeed. More or less and I'm finding this to be a common theme, its the people in the organization and how they are managed that creates long-term success. A company is short-sighted if they think it is any one product alone because in this age with exponential competition, we must rely...more
I tend to intuitively agree with many of the concepts laid out (small teams, give people ownership, move quickly and iterate).
However, this book suffers from flaws that others have pointed out multiple times.
* Proof by anecdote
* Did not investigate what qualities differentiated excellent companies from non-excellent companies.
* Most of the companies chosen as excellent have shuttered or suffered (although this doesn't negate that most of them were excellent at one point).
However, this book suffers from flaws that others have pointed out multiple times.
* Proof by anecdote
* Did not investigate what qualities differentiated excellent companies from non-excellent companies.
* Most of the companies chosen as excellent have shuttered or suffered (although this doesn't negate that most of them were excellent at one point).
Aug 10, 2008
Greg
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
professional-development
Interesting, well-written, and especially, thought-provoking. This book was (and remains) highly regarded by many, despite problems with the authors' study methodology and later unanticipated problems with the firms they highlighted. They make an argument for lessons to be learned from companies that were among the best in America at that time. Among those lessons were:
1. Manage ambiguity and paradox
2. Have a bias for action
3. Stay close to your customer
4. Build autonomy and entrepreneurship
5. i...more
1. Manage ambiguity and paradox
2. Have a bias for action
3. Stay close to your customer
4. Build autonomy and entrepreneurship
5. i...more
I read this book 10 years ago on the advice of my boss at the time. I think he was trying to inspire me to hang on at a tough job. Looking back and considering the more recent Tom Peters book I just read, I still think this was a great book and a great project. I would recommend this to my friends as a good book to start learning about big company management and leadership.
May 13, 2013
Mark C'de Baca
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone in business
Recommended to Mark by:
Bob Johnson
I read this first in the early 80's at the start of of a job I still have in 2013. Tom Peters uses his perspective on how sucessful companies are run with a commonsense to show how to treat customers and deliver more than what they expect. Up there with Mark McCormack's wisdom. A must read for anyone in business or anyone who works for one with brains.
A business book. Not engagingly written per se, but well worth the time. The gurus of business distill the essential characteristics of a well-run organization by starting with the organizations that are successful in reality, rather than starting with an ideological assumption. Useful for anyone in any level of management or leadership.
Tom Peters was profiled in Fortune some years ago as being a parody of his former self. In its time, In Search of Excellence was the book about excelling in business and emphasizing customer service and the customer experience. There was a wonderful documentary released in the early 80s based on the book. Worth a read.
Dense, well-researched, and useful. If you're a manager, you'll pause to reflect every few paragraphs, so give this one time. Make sure you have a load of bookmarks at the ready. Also, have a pen and notebook by your side - Peters and Waterman cite a library's worth of management reference material.
I had to read this for class. Peters and Waterman have some good concepts, but the writing is anything but "exuberant and absorbing", as the WSJ claims. Published in 1982, this book deserves a second edition with contemporary subjects of study—Apple would be a huge get—and analysis of why formerly excellent companies discussed in the first edition (HP, IBM, Exxon, Delta) are no longer that way but why Boeing and UTC still are, and why Lockheed and GE have reversed fortune. It would validate or...more
This 1982 book inspired me and served as my “bible” in all the reforms I succeeded at and failed at. While time has proven that there are no excellent companies, this book illuminates the search, and clearly lays out the path to organizational and personal success.
Sep 26, 2007
Sammy
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
the curious ones.
Apparently, it was "... named by NPR (in 1999) as one of the "Top Three Business Books of the Century," and ranked as the "greatest business book of all time" in a poll by Britain's Bloomsbury Publishing (2002)."
It's an old book for a different time in American business. It was rather lightweight and imprecise ... I don't know if how much I gathered from this book is any good. A lot of the theory seems logical. Treat employees better and they will find new ways to make the company money. (Well,...more
It's an old book for a different time in American business. It was rather lightweight and imprecise ... I don't know if how much I gathered from this book is any good. A lot of the theory seems logical. Treat employees better and they will find new ways to make the company money. (Well,...more
Jan 24, 2012
Somasundaram
is currently reading it
Boring.
I listened to the audio version of the book and it was slow and painful. Their ideas are good, but the prolong examples were more matter than meat. This is a book that is better skimmed than read.
I read the book in Dec 2008 and some of the companies mentioned either don't exist or have been bought up by others. I would really like to see a follow up to the book and see how the companies are doing and if the priciples Peters extols have worked.
I listened to the audio version of the book and it was slow and painful. Their ideas are good, but the prolong examples were more matter than meat. This is a book that is better skimmed than read.
I read the book in Dec 2008 and some of the companies mentioned either don't exist or have been bought up by others. I would really like to see a follow up to the book and see how the companies are doing and if the priciples Peters extols have worked.
One of the best books on management of all time. A classic study of 10 traits exemplified by come of the nations most successful companies. My personal favorite: "Stick to your knitting!"
Sep 27, 2010
Mohammad
is currently reading it
so far the book is good, since it IS talking about real people and real business owners, I think it will help me understand more profoundly how the world of business is actually running
This is not a book I'd read in my dream. When a writer putting his words into paper, he must thing about his readers. Tom Peters did exactly the opposite. Hard to digest.
a classic book on managementThe 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Ugh. The first selection for the faux MBA book club I'm in, and I really didn't like it. Serious hindsight bias, selection bias, all other kinds of bias.
This book was responsible for my interest in the study of management. Excellent for the point in time and Tom Peters recognizes that today.
Started a whole genre - and whole field of study...
Much of what Peters and Waterman talk about remains relevant today
Much of what Peters and Waterman talk about remains relevant today
Excellent book on what make companies successful...great research and ideas behind this book...peters is brilliant!
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Born in Baltimore in 1942 "with a lacrosse stick in one hand and oars over my shoulder," Peters resided in California, mainly Silicon Valley (where he was on a list of "100 most powerful people in Silicon Valley"), from 1965–2000. Today, Peters and his wife Susan Sargent live on a 1,600-acre working farm, "always under construction," in Vermont. His two stepsons, Max and Ben Cooper, are "busy chan...more
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Jan 19, 2010 05:46pm