One of the best business books I've read. Even thought it was written over 20 years ago, it is still 100% relevant and applicable to business today. Some of the broad themes it covers are listed below, but this list does do justice to the great examples of these concepts that are found in the book:

A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'. Facilitate quick decision making & problem solving tends to avoid bureaucratic control

Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business.

Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'.

Productivity through people- treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.

Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.

Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know.

Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.

Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values.

As usual an excellent researched and qualified book ...no busn speak and debunks a lot of the myths around success and business. Yes hard work is obvious but the other quantified measures, though obvious are often missed ...although the focus may be on larger corporate busn ...the lessons are universal across all business.

Way back in the 1980s few people in business gave much thought to what makes an excellent business. Peters and Waterman conducted research on companies they identified as excellent. What they found were some common threads among the truly excellent companies.

Being counted as an excellent company today is no guarantee that the company will be excellent in the future. The bar of excellence is constantly being raised and, in today’s economy, lowered.

If you are a business student, this is among the books you should read. Also, if you are looking for business research, with a little business history thrown in, you should read Built to Last by James C. Collins and Jerry Porras and Good to Great by Jim Collins.

In Search of Excellence explains how Peters and Waterman conducted their research and then what they found. They give us some insight into the excellent companies and what makes them tick.

The book is a business classic. If you were in management back in the 1980s, you were probably compelled to read this book. The Fast Track Management program I was in made this required reading.

This book has been a part of my business library for years. I don’t remember where I bought it.

http://www.mcclendonenterprises.com

The Bible of management...

There are certain books that literally change the day to day lives of people throughout the world. This book, written in the 1980s, is one of those books. Many of us remember what the business world was like in the years before "In Search of Excellence" was released. Companies had a piece-meal mentality focusing on productivity and effficiency while controlling employees with a rigid set of rules. This mentality was reflected by the way that companies referred to their staff as "hourly employees", "salaried employees" and "management". There was no team mentality in those days, jobs were jobs and the idea of career was almost exclusive to MBA graduates who climbed the corporate ladder.

Today, companies do not use the same terminology or the same mentality when managing their staffs. Employees are now referred to as "Associates" and given responsibilities even when they are not managers. The rules in the workplace have changed, the dress code relaxed, work hours are flexible, and benefits once available only to management are not available to ordinary joes. Today we take this environment for granted, but much of the impetus for this change came from this book, "In Search of Excellence", which called for management to open their minds to the kind of change that has propelled many of the companies highlighted in this book to succeed.

It is interesting to read this book 30 years after its first publication. Not only is the contrast between the old work-rules and the new so stark. Many of the recommendations made by Peters and Waterman in this book are common practice today. But we see many of the companies highlighted in this book are still leaders in their fields. It would be interesting to review some of the "flash in the pan" works of popular management of the past 20 years to see how many of the companies that the authors hold out as leaders turn out to be losers at the first economic downturn or industry realignment. This book's example companies are still leaders today. This is a testimony to the enduring value of this book.

My only complaint with this book is that there is no contrast in the study of these companies. Peters and Waterman give great examples of things that companies do right, but do not show what happens when companies don't follow this example. I believe that the reason for this is that Peters and Waterman were consultants for Price Waterhouse at the time that they wrote this book, and they used PW clients as examples. No company of course is going to object when their consultants write a book that lauds their clients. But if any PW clients were called out for not following good management practices, well, look out! There would have been dire consequences for the authors and probably for their firm. So there is an inherent conflict of interest when consultants write books about clients. It's forgivable, but it's there.

Overall I would greatly recommend this book to all who want to learn how to manage organizations better.

In my point of view, the book lessons from the best companies is very good for entrepreneurs

I was convinced at the time. Now I'm not so sure that it wasn't a trick. The apparent message is great but not so sure whether it was just a ruse. Sad. One of those seminal books along the way I guess.

I've read this book before. It was called every business book ever written ever. I realize this was one of the first and was ground breaking in its day but now its been reduced to a cliche. The books that followed are more detailed and more relevant for today's world. If you're interested in history fine but if you want practical advice for today don't waste your time with this one.

Somewhat outdated and aimed at large corporations (even if the author praises acting as a small company /3rd point of excellence/ - throughout the book, the examples involve large companies).
Some companies mentioned in the book failed in the meantime, some principles are still valid (and omnipresent), while some of them are no longer relevant and even counterproductive in 2019.

Amerika’nın en büyük ve en iyi 15 şirketinin özelliklerini temelde birkaç ana başlıkta özetlemiş:

- Sürekli müşterilerini dinler, ona göre çalışırlar.
- Gerçek anlamda çalışanlarına önem verir, ilgilenirler.
- İnovasyon bu şirketlerin yakıtı gibidir.

A very nice management book! the book is newer version of same title published twice before discussing what are the factors which make some companies excellent and discuss 8 basic factors which assume to be so and I agree with them to large extent.
The book discuss each idea with tons and tons of detailed examples (to the boring extent) yet present the ideas clearly and in very simple convincing way.
I really recommend the book for people working at different managerial levels in different industries. and I request the authors to issue summarized version for executives with less examples.

Probably a quintessential business read that I read because our CEO mentioned that it influenced him. It is bit dated since the study was on companies in the 1960s-1970s and I'm sure that there are a slew of books analyzing what it got right and wrong. But, after 30 years in business, most of it still holds up.