Insearch Of Excellence

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Author Credentials 2

Tom Peters 2

Robert H. Waterman 3

Rationale 5

Face Validity 5

Target Audience 6

Integration of Existing Knowledge 7

Readability 7

Internal Validity 8

Reliability 8

Distinctiveness 9

Objectivity 9

External Validity 9

Practicality 10

Introduction

We had a great opportunity in the past few weeks for we read a book entitled "in search of excellence - Lessons from America's Best - run Companies" by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman JR.

The publication is a survey written by a couple of McKinsey consultants that seek to define the characteristics of successful - excellent, organizations using the McKinsey 7-S framework; Structure, Systems, Style, Staff, Skills, Strategy, and Shared Values. Their findings suggest that eight attributes are common for an excellent organization; bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands on, value driven, stick to the knitting (=focus on what you do best), simple form lean staff, and simultaneous loose-tight properties (balance between centralized/decentralized organization).

According to the research we have made on the authors, both the authors are found to be well known management guru. And this fact made our attempt to give a critique on the book so hard. However, we have come up with ...

Author Credentials

Tom Peters

Peters was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended Cornell University, receiving a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1965, and a master's degree in 1966. He then studied business at Stanford University, receiving an M.B.A. and Ph.D.. In 2004, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of San Francisco and Rhodes College. He also received an honorary doctorate from the State University of Management in Moscow.

From 1966 to 1970, he served in the United States Navy, making two deployments to Vietnam as a Navy Seabee, then later working in the Pentagon. From 1973 to 1974, he worked in the White House as a senior drug-abuse advisor, during the Nixon administration. Peters has acknowledged the influence of military strategist Colonel John Boyd on his later writing.

From 1974 to 1981, Peters worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, becoming a partner and Organization Effectiveness practice leader in 1979, and then in 1981, he went solo and became an independent consultant.

Peters currently lives in Vermont with his wife Susan Sargent, and continues to write and speak about personal and business empowerment and problem solving methodologies.

Works

* 1982 - In Search of Excellence (co-written with Robert H. Waterman, Jr.)

* 1985 - A Passion for Excellence (co-written with Nancy Austin)

* 1987 - Thriving on Chaos

* 1992 - Liberation Management

* 1993 - The Tom Peters Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations

* 1994 - The Pursuit of WOW!

* 1997 - The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness

* 1999 - The Brand You50, The Project50 and The Professional Service Firm50

* 2003 - Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age

"In no small part, what American corporations have become is what Peters has encouraged them to be."--The New Yorker

"Peters is ... the father of the post-modern corporation." --Los Angeles Times

"We live in a Tom Peters world."--Fortune

"Tom Peters has probably done more than anyone else to shift the debate on management from the confines of boardrooms, academia, and consultancies to a broader, worldwide audience, where it has become the staple diet of the media and managers alike. Peter Drucker has written more and his ideas have withstood a longer test of time, but it is Peters--as consultant, writer, columnist, seminar lecturer, and stage performer--whose energy, style, influence, and ideas have shaped new management thinking."

In an in-depth analytic study released by Accenture's Institute for Strategic Change in 2002, Peters scored 2nd among the top 50

Leadership guru Warren Bennis, the only person who knows both Peter Drucker and Tom personally, told a reporter, "If Peter Drucker invented modern management, Tom Peters vivified it".

Robert H. Waterman

Robert H. Waterman is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Waterman Group, Inc. He is an internationally known business executive, speaker, and author. His best-selling books on business management and motivation include "In Search of Excellence", "The Renewal Factor", "Adhocracy: The Power to Change", and "What America Does Right".

After 21 years at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, he now directs his own company, The Waterman Group, Inc.

Mr. Waterman chairs the RLS Foundation, the national non-profit organization that sponsors research, raises awareness of, and looks for better treatments of Restless Leg Syndrome. He also serves on the boards of the AES Corporation (the independent power producing company he helped found) and the World Wildlife Fund. He earned his MBA from Stanford University and his degree in geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines.

Rationale

As is described by the authors in the introductory part of the book, the book is written to share the