In Search of Excellence is an international bestselling book written by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr, first published in 1982. The book explores the art and science of management used by leading companies with records of long-term profitability and continuing innovation.

This controversial book had a wide effect among Wall Street analysts and corporate management at its time of publication. The word Excellence appeared on many American corporate strategy statements and pillow-cards in different forms.

Later, many of the companies profiled in this book as fine examples of Excellence, such as Atari, Data General, DEC, IBM, Lanier, NCR, Wang, Xerox and others did not produce excellent results in their balance sheets. As a result of these failures, a parody of this book, In Search of Stupidity, was published providing an alternative view to the issues presented in the original book.

According to an interview with Tom Peters in Fast Company, the data in the book was faked. He is quoted as saying, "This is pretty small beer, but for what it's worth, okay, I confess: We faked the data." He later denied having said this during the interview, but the denial does not make it clear whether or not the data was actually faked. (Chapman, 2003, p. 123)

Eight Themes of the Book

---

Here is the summary of the eight themes of the book, which is also the eight chapters of the book. Peters and Waterman found eight common themes which they argued were responsible for the success of the chosen corporations, which have become pointers for managers ever since.

1. A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'.
2. Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business.
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'.
4. Productivity through people - treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.
5. Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
6. Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know.
7. Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralised values.

References

---

• Chapman, Merrill R., In Search of Stupidity.

External links

---

• The In Search of Excellence Training Video or DVD

1982 books