Summary of Tom Peters & Robert H. Waterman's In Search of Excellence

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The most helpful ideas were coming from the strangest places. In 1962, the business historian Alfred Chandler wrote Strategy and Structure, in which he expressed the very powerful notion that structure follows strategy. The conventional wisdom was that Chandler’s dictum had the makings of universal truth.

#2 The problem of management effectiveness is that the dearth of practical additions to old ways of thought is painfully apparent. The stream of thought that today’s researchers are tapping is an old one, started in the 1930s by Elton Mayo and Chester Barnard, who challenged ideas put forward by Max Weber, who defined the bureaucratic form of organization.

#3 The role of a leader is to harness the social forces in the organization, to shape and guide values. Good managers are value shapers concerned with the informal social properties of organization.

#4 The intangibles that top-performing managers describe are much more in line with Weick and March than with Taylor or Chandler. They talk about family feeling, small is beautiful, and simplicity rather than complexity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822514775

IRB Media

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Insights on Tom Peters & Robert H. Waterman's In Search of Excellence

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The most helpful ideas were coming from the strangest places. In 1962, the business historian Alfred Chandler wrote Strategy and Structure, in which he expressed the very powerful notion that structure follows strategy. The conventional wisdom was that Chandler’s dictum had the makings of universal truth.

#2

The problem of management effectiveness is that the dearth of practical additions to old ways of thought is painfully apparent. The stream of thought that today’s researchers are tapping is an old one, started in the 1930s by Elton Mayo and Chester Barnard, who challenged ideas put forward by Max Weber, who defined the bureaucratic form of organization.

#3

The role of a leader is to harness the social forces in the organization, to shape and guide values. Good managers are value shapers concerned with the informal social properties of organization.

#4

The intangibles that top-performing managers describe are much more in line with Weick and March than with Taylor or Chandler. They talk about family feeling, small is beautiful, and simplicity rather than complexity.

#5

The McKinsey 7-S Framework is a list of seven variables that make up a good organizational structure. Any intelligent approach to organizing has to take into account at least seven variables: structure, strategy, people, management style, systems and procedures, guiding concepts and shared values, and corporate strengths or skills.

#6

The seven S’s framework has helped us understand how large institutions work, and it has helped us recognize that change in these institutions is a function of at least seven hunks of complexity. We still lack practical design ideas, especially for the soft S’s.

#7

The companies that we labeled excellent were those that were particularly good at producing commercially viable new widgets. They were also adroit at responding to change in their environments.

#8

The eight attributes that characterize most nearly the distinction of the excellent, innovative companies are as follows: a bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, and respect for the individual.

#9

The eight attributes of the excellent companies are: 1. Hands-on, value driven. 2. Stick to the knitting. 3. Simple form, lean staff. 4. Simultaneous loose-tight properties. 5. People are the most important asset. 6. Preference for action over countless standing committees and endless 500-page studies. 7. fetish for quality and service standards that others would consider pipe dreams. 8.

#10

The eight traits of excellent companies are clear and easy to see in the companies we studied. They are quick action, service to customers, practical innovation, and the fact that you can’t get any of