In Search of Excellence

By
Tom Peters & Robert Waterman

This book was gifted by one of my friend to me. But I didn’t like it and didn’t go through it. But, I was forced to read it as an assignment in my MBA induction programme. This time I got in love with this book. It covered so many sectors, with deep insights into decades of industrial experience. After I read it, I found that it has been referred by huge number of business articles and books over last few decades.

Authors both hailing from legendary McKinsey, initiated this research with the sole aim to discover “What makes any company excellent?” The sample of sixty two companies was selected broadly representing US industry as a whole. These companies covered the areas like High Technology, Consumer Goods, Service & Project Management. The companies included GE, IBM, McDonald’s, Frito Lay, Kodak and many more.

Finally they discovered the following key ingredients to the successful recipe:

1. Action Biased- It throws light on the necessity of organizational fluidity, chunking and experimenting and above all creating systems where healthy and strong communication is unavoidable.
2. Customer Oriented-It talks about the service and quality obsession, value for money to the users and the whole organization designed around the customer needs.
   Autonomy & Entrepreneurship- It talks about Innovation and nurturing the Intrapreneurs
3. Lean and Simple-It basically focuses on KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid) and lean governance of the organization.
4. Loose Tight Properties- it talks about the free hand company’s employees should be given in day to day activities. They should be encouraged to break or circumvent the rules and norms but never should be allowed to compromise on company’s values
5. Productivity through People-It talks about treating people as responsible and grown up adults. And giving them the whole authority with the congenial environment, where they can perform to their potential.
6. Value Driven- It throws lights on the basic concept of values and its growing necessity in today’s business environment. It talks about how these values should be imbibed in organizational culture and every employee of the organization. It also elaborates the role of the leader in creating such a culture.
7. Stick to the knitting- It talks about sticking to and developing the core competency.
   
   Then during this research itself they developed framework to cover the core elements of any organization. This framework was widely referred and used in industry, thereafter and came to be known as McKinsey 7-S Framework. 7-S’s of this framework are:
   · Structure
   · Strategy
   · Skills
   · Staff
   · Style
   · Systems
   · Shared Values

Among these S’s Shared Values is the central one.

In total this book is stuffed with the juice of business wisdom, which any participant in today’s corporate world should get acquainted with.

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