In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

by Thomas J. Peters

The top companies make meaning, not just money.

“We are very different from the rest of the world. Our only natural resource is the hard work of our people.”

HP’s David Packard notes, “You’ve got to avoid having too rigid an organization…. If an organization is to work effectively, the communication should be through the most effective channel regardless of the organization chart. That is what happens a lot around here. I’ve often thought that after you get organized, you ought to throw the chart away.”

We act as if express beliefs are important, yet action speaks louder than words. One cannot, it turns out, fool any of the people any of the time. They watch for patterns in our most minute actions, and are wise enough to distrust words that in any way mismatch our deeds.

The systems in the excellent companies are not only designed to produce lots of winners; they are constructed to celebrate the winning once it occurs.

P&G is legendary for its insistence on one-page memos as the almost sole means of written communication.

The role of the leader, then, is one of orchestrator and labeler: taking what can be gotten in the way of action and shaping it — generally after the fact — into lasting commitment to a new strategic direction. In short, he makes meanings.

At Hewlett-Packard, top management’s explicit criterion for picking managers is their ability to engender excitement.

Like good parents, they cared a lot — and expected a lot.

basic human needs in organizations: (1) people’s need for meaning; (2) people’s need for a modicum of control; (3) people’s need for positive reinforcement, to think of themselves as winners in some sense; and (4) the degrees to which actions and behaviors shape attitudes and beliefs rather than vice versa.