Everybody wants to claim center stage for their tool

Waterman and Peters’ book In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies was published in 1982 and became a runaway best seller. It brought the whole consumption of management tools to a broad audience and perhaps singlehandedly created the category of the mass market business book. It also maintained that strategy was perhaps less important than organization for long-term performance. Given that Waterman and Peters were both consultants at McKinsey, a firm whose bread and butter depended on firms handing over large sums for strategy advice, this might not have been the most politically astute position to take…Peters didn’t last long at the firm after taking this position.

So what were the magical practices that characterize the best-run companies?

The authors found 8 that they argue make all the difference.

A bias for action

a preference for doing something - anything - rather than sending a question through cycles and cycles of analyses and committee reports.

2 learning customers' preferences and catering to them. Staying close to the customer 3

Autonomy and entrepreneurship

breaking the corporation into small companies and encouraging them to think independently and competitively.

Productivity through people

creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and that they will share in the rewards of the company's success.

5

Hands-on, value driven insisting that executives keep in touch with the firm's essential business. remaining with the business; "The company knows best." Stick to the knitting

7 few administrative layers, few people at the upper levels. Simple form, lean staff

So what were the magical practices that characterize the best-run companies?

The authors found 8 that they argue make all the difference.

Simultaneous loose–tight properties fostering a climate where there is dedication to central values of the company combined with tolerance for all employees who accept these values