In Search of Excellence - Book Report/Review Example

In Search of Excellence THESIS STATEMENT The purpose of this, study is to conduct a review on the book “In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies” by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H., Jr. Waterman. BOOK REVIEW “In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies” is a seminal management book by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H., Jr. Waterman, which was published in the year 1982. Over the years, several books on business and management have been published, which has drawn considerable attention of both business professionals and academic scholars. Correspondingly, this book is recognized as one of the largest selling and most read business book. In this book the authors had worked on exploring the success measures behind the organizational excellence. Today, many companies can be ascertained to be searching for organizational excellence. However, not many companies can be seen to achieve these goals, apparently due to the fact that management of these companies do not have solid understanding about what excellence actually means. Contextually, the authors, Peters and Waterman offer readers some of the interesting facts about the attributes of organizational excellence. Besides, the authors had interviewed 43 top companies listed in the Fortune 500's ranging from Boeing to McDonald's to acquire an in-depth and comprehensive understanding regarding the criteria contributing towards the excellence of the companies. In this book, the authors expresses that most of the companies being interviewed had little knowledge about their founders and their shared values. The authors in this book also asserts that past stories of a company, norms and legends are extremely important as they communicate the organization’s culture as well as shared values that serve as guiding principles for employees within the organization. The author expresses that the dominance and lucidity of culture are essential quality of the excellent and innovative companies. It has been further argued by the authors that people in the excellent companies are well-aware of what they are supposed to do in most of the circumstances owing to the fact that the guiding principles are crystal clear. The authors propounded that even poor performing companies have well-built culture but are dysfunctional. According to the authors, these types of companies are often engaged in internal politics rather than concentrating on customers and other stakeholders. Moreover, these companies also tends to focus more on the numbers rather than enhancing the product quality along with increasing the competency of the people who are engaged in product design, development and sell. Accordingly, the authors in this book claim that if companies do not have strong visions as revealed in their values, myths, standards, stories and legends, security of people within the organizations are merely limited to the designations reflected on the organizational chart (Peters and Waterman 25-55). The authors in this book have used McKinney’s 7-S framework, which include seven major elements namely structure, strategy, systems, style of management, skills, staff and shared values as an analysis model for success criteria. The authors, Peters and Waterman categorized the first two success criteria under hardware dimension while the subsequent criteria were grouped under soft dimension. Accordingly, the authors, Peters and Waterman expresses that managers by focusing on these 7S’s are able to accomplish more instead of concentrating only on two elements of structure and strategy (Peters and Waterman 25-55). The authors have identified eight major attributes of excellence, which characterized the innovative companies. The first attribute of the eight included ‘a bias for action’. According to the authors, ‘a bias for action’ implies that decision making in a company often seems to be analytical based on the experiments but it is argued that detailed analysis may serve as a hurdles against problem solving. Responsively, the authors asserted on setting of a cross functional team for effective problem solving within a company where external stakeholders such as customers or supplier may also ensure their supplementary role and involvement. The second attribute includes ‘close to the customer’, which governs that the successful and innovative companies often value their customers and listen to their voice. Besides, the second attribute advocates the use of the voices or the customers’ preferences as input for uninterrupted improvements along with design and development of new products and services. The third attribute includes ‘autonomy and entrepreneurship’. With respect to the third attribute, the authors state that all employees within a company not limited to people in R & D are required to embrace the quality of creativity and innovativeness in their day to day tasks. The fourth attribute includes ‘productivity through people’, which implies that people within the company are required to come up with new and innovative ideas that promotes waste reduction and contributes towards growth in productivity by ensuring proper framework embracing certain aspects such as respect, empowerment and involvement. The fifth attribute includes ‘hands-on’ and ‘value driven’ which signifies that the philosophy, vision and values held by a company are the primary guideline. Furthermore, they are far more vital than any other aspects such as technological or economic resources necessary for the execution of day to day tasks and dealing with challenges encountered by the company during the course of business operation. The sixth attribute includes ‘stick to the knitting’, which emphasizes that the excellent companies are more concerned about the business they know and are often engaged in exploring minute details that may have the potential to influence the operation of the company. The seventh attribute includes ‘simple form lean staff’, which implies that the underlying structural forms and systems in the excellent and innovative companies are superior and at the same time simple and top-level staff members of the company are lean. The last and the eight attribute includes simultaneous ‘loose-tight properties’, which signifies that the excellent and innovative companies’ value both centralized and decentralized way of delegating authority and responsibility. Precisely, the authors, Peters and Waterman asserted that companies embracing these eight attributes are often able to attain excellence in their respective fields (Peters and Waterman 119-306). The eight attributes of organizational excellence or best practices coined by Peters and Waterman can be identified to be effective and reliable criteria for attaining success for any business organization. It cannot be denied that the authors, Peters and Waterman by focusing on the soft dimension and recognizing many intangible organizational phenomena such as values, beliefs, norms, behavioral patterns and styles have made significant contribution in the field of business and management. Their efforts towards initiating the studies on the importance of organizational culture are indeed commendable. The findings reflected in this book reveal certain underlying factors pertaining to the aspects of culture, which can be viewed to aid companies in achieving their visions and missions. However, it can be argued that these attributes not always render an organization with excellence and in certain circumstances these attributes may be misleading. It is possible that managers may misconstrue the identified characteristics of organizational excellence, and they may fail to understand the logical linkages between attributes. In addition, these findings obtained by the authors can be viewed as a mixture of various elements. Subsequently, these attributes can be argued to be less effective in providing a proper guiding framework. It is extremely crucial for the managers to understand that the best practices as listed by the authors in this book may not always be an appropriate measure for an organization. Correspondingly, the lists can be viewed to be both misleading and in certain circumstances be risky for organizations to implement. It is therefore stated that companies in pursuit of excellence should not solely focus on the eight attributes of organizational excellence nailed in this book. Rather it is imperative for companies to foster innovation and embrace organizational culture that supports the growth along with long-term sustainability of the companies. Work Cited Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. United States: HarperCollins, 1982. Print. Read More