Book Review : In Search of Excellence

By Tom Peters and Robert Waterman

The book of 400 pages was written in by two McKinsey consultants - Tom Peters and Robert Waterman - at a time of crisis for American industry in 1982. Politically, America was falling behind in the Cold War against Russia. Economically, the country was stilled gripped by stag-flation stagnation coupled with inflation. America was facing a crisis in competiveness and its position as the world economic superpower was being threatened by Japan and West Germany. Managers brought up in the mode of Ford, General Motor and IBM suddenly realised that simply doing what they did yesterday might not be good enough for tomorrow and looked for help. At that time, Peters and Waterman identified eight qualities possessed by excellent companies: 1. A bias for action a preference for doing something, anything rather than sending a question through cycles of analysis and committee reports. 2. Close to the customer - learning their preferences and catering to them. 3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship breaking the corporation into small companies and encouraging them to think independently and competitively. 4. Productivity through people creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and they will share in the rewards of the companys success. 5. Hands-on, value driven insisting that executives keep in touch with the firms essential business. 6. Stick to the knitting remaining with the business the company knows best. 7. Simple form, lean staff few administrative layers, few people at the upper levels.

8. Simultaneous loose tight properties fostering a climate where there is dedication to the central values of the company combined with tolerance for all employees who accept those values. They subsequently identified 43 companies out of the Fortune 500 and held them up as bastions of excellence, measured by six financial yardsticks over 20 years: 1. Compound asset growth 2. Compound equity growth 3. Ratio of market value to book value 4. Return on capital 5. Return on equity 6. Return on sales

Conclusion
Its not that In Search of Excellence was the first business book ever published My Life in Advertising, Confessions of an Advertising Man and most of the works of Peter Drucker came well before it. But its appearance in January of 1982 radically changed business generally and publishing specifically, and coupled with the huge success two years later of Lee Iacoccas eponymous memoir, it helped usher in an age in which businessmen were suddenly heroes and in which every executive with a moderately positive spreadsheet felt compelled to discuss it in mind-numbing detail. An age, it should be noted, in which we are still mired. The book is wonderful read that has its own unique flow. The best part of the book is the maverick approach followed by the authors, anyone who has a penchant to do something unique and to think of a situation with a non stereotypical approach, this book is a must read. The book is highly inspiring and very systematic in approach. Its among the very few books of its time that had tried to consider the people factor and

Culture factor in the success of a company. Another important strength of the book is that it is based on the fundamentals of solid research rather than assumptions. Peters is an inspiring speaker. His maxim is If it aint broke, break it. He champions empowerment of middle management and a ripping up of the rule-books on layered bureaucracy. His thinking indirectly gave rise to the business process reengineering movement that gathered pace in the 1980s causing widespread unemployment and the closure of manufacturing plants. Though like any other good piece of work it has its regular flaws too. The book primarily focuses on companies that have American origin. The time when the book was written lot of Japanese firms were also rising but hardly any focus is given upon them. Secondly many of the things that the book talks about are in general vague in nature and cannot be described very easily. The book also does not have any analytical tools as such. But all in all the book is a great read and can be read by all sorts of people such as corporate, Entrepreneurs, Managers, students and general readers etc.