In search of excellence : lessons from America's best-run companies / by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
By: Peters, Thomas J
.
Contributor(s): Waterman, Robert H.
Material type: 
BookPublisher: New York : Harper & Row, 1982Description: xxvi, 360 p. ; 22 cm.ISBN: 0060150424 .Subject(s): Industrial management -- United StatesDDC classification: 658.00973 | Item type | Current library | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Lending | MTU Bishopstown Library Lending | 658.00973 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Checked out | 19/04/2022 | 00160918 | |
| General Lending | MTU National Maritime College of Ireland Library Lending | 658.00973 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 00156037 |
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Provides an incisive look at the successful management techniques of IBM, Texas Instruments, 3M, and other profitable American businesses.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Part I: The saving remnant -- Successful American Companies -- Part II: Toward new theory -- The rational model -- Man waiting for motivation -- Part III: Back to basics -- Managing ambiguity and paradox -- A bias for action -- Close to the customer -- Autonomy and Entrepreneurship -- Productivity through people -- Hands-on, Value-Driven -- Stick to the knitting -- Simple form, Lean staff -- Simultaneous loose-tight properties.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Kirkus Book Review
America's business decline, which has made Japanese management techniques look good and made B-school number-crunching look bad, has also spurred a search for right-acting American companies--of which this is the most ambitious example to date. Peters and Waterman, two McKinsey and Co. consultants, have selected out 43 prominent models of ""excellence"" (IBM, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's, Hewlett-Packard, etc.), identified eight people-centered traits that they share, and worked up some theoretical explanations for the failure of the number-crunchers and the success of the people-centered breed. (The minuses of the one approach--conservative, ""heartless,"" negative, anti-experimental--are the pluses of the other, with reference also to psychological studies of motivation.) The authors then elaborate enthusiastically on each of the eight traits--as manifest at IBM, etc. A cynic might note that the most concrete attribute on the list (#6 Stick to the knitting), arguably a precondition for others (like #2 Close to the customer; #3 Autonomy and entrepreneurship; #5 Hands-on, value driven), is that almost none of these companies is a conglomerate or part of a conglomerate. The merest skeptic will suspect that the success of these behemoths involves more than recognizing ""that the individual human being still counts,"" and adopting motivational techniques and open communications. The quick learner will bridle at being presented with the same simple precepts in one after another context--while the selective reader can find a leaner, sharper presentation of many of the same themes in The Mind of the Strategist, by McKinsey Tokyo manager Kenichi Ohmae, and Corporate Cultures, by Harvard ed prof Terrence E. Deal and McKinseyite Allan A. Kennedy. This is tantamount to an indoctrination session in Up-with-People business evangelism. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Tom Peters, public speaker and author, graduated from Cornell University and received a M.B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He has also received honorary doctorates from the University of San Francisco and Rhodes College.He was in the U. S. Navy during Vietnam and later served as a senior White House drug abuse advisor (1973-74). He worked for McKinsey & Company from 1974 to 1981. He holds about 75 seminars a year and has created and starred in a series of corporate training films.
He is the co-author of In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies, which was a New York Times bestseller for three years. This book and subsequent titles have become bestsellers in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Peters contributes to several newspapers and journals, including writing a bimonthly column for Forbes ASAP.
(Bowker Author Biography)