Drea Knufken
1. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies
by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.
1982
Highly influential when global competition, largely from Japan, had brought Western business to a low, this quintessential business book describes eight enduring management principles that made the forty-three companies surveyed “excellent.” The authors focus exclusively on big companies, namely big manufacturers, but ironically condemn the excesses of modern management practice and advocate a return to simpler virtues. They have since come to feel that their ideas are better embodied in smaller companies.
Through lively case studies, this very readable classic forces a look at the fundamentals, at “first principles” that give a company its soul: Attention to customers, an abiding concern for people (productivity through people), the celebration of trial and error. A driving force in the subsequent deluge of business books, this trailblazer established customer service as a key form of differentiation and advantage, and launched the author-as-consultant/speaker/celebrity phenomenon.
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Sources: Perseus Publishing’s The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Management Books You’ll Never Have Time to Read, Forbes, Business Week, U.S. News & World Report, a variety of lists located around the Web, and our own subjective reading experiences.
