Cydcor Reviews ‘In Search of Excellence’

About In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

First published in 1982, In Search of Excellence is one of the best selling business books of all time, selling nearly 3 millions copies in its first four years. The book continues to be influential for business professionals and is considered a classic. In this book, Peters and Waterman, Jr. explore the science and art used by the management of some of the most successful companies of the 1980s. By examining how companies such as Boeing and The Walt Disney Co. were able to be innovative and excel, this book puts strategies that work for management in the forefront.

Why Cydcor Reviews recommends this to future leaders:

The book is an excellent recommendation for anyone in business management. Many people have called In Search of Excellence the most influential business book in the last 20 years. The bulk of the book focuses on 43 companies thought to be excellent at the time. Although this book was written more than thirty years ago, many of the points Peters and Waterman, Jr. make about excellent companies make are still relevant. Great companies struggle to remain on top over an extended period of time, but the excellent ones succeed. This is a good foundational read to build skills based on what it takes to be a company of excellence.

Our favorite part:

This book lays out the eight characteristics of excellent companies that readers can follow along with. These characteristics include a bias for action, close to the customer, autonomy and entrepreneurship, productivity through people, hands-on and values driven, stick to the knitting, simple form and lean staff, and simultaneous loose-tight properties. These eight characteristics are all still relevant today, and many companies still have difficulty implementing them. After the book was such a success, Peters went on to become a star in the field of management entertaining. This speaks volumes to how much of an effect this book had on subsequent business-oriented books.