1. In Search of Excellence
Tom Peters &
Robert H Waterman Jr.
Archana Misra
Rohit Trivedi
Sriram Peri
07/16/12
2. Overview
How does one achieve Success?
Can Success be Achieved through Structure and
Strategy?
Is Structure followed by Strategy or Vice-Versa?
07/16/12
4. Eight Important Lessons
A Bias for Action
Close to the Customer
Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
Productivity Through People
Hands-on, Value Driven
Stick to the Knitting
Simple Form, Lean Staff
Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties
07/16/12
5. Man Waiting for Motivation
• Everybody likes Appreciation
• Fundamental Attribution Theory
• Simplicity and Complexity
• Positive Reinforcement
o Specific
o Immediate
o Achievable
o Intangible
o Unpredictable and Intermittent
• Action, Meaning and Self-Control
• Transforming Leadership
07/16/12
7. Managing Ambiguity and
Paradox
Elements of Basic Human Needs
• Need for Meaning
• Need for a Modicum of Control
• Need for Positive Reinforcement
• The Degree to which Actions and Behaviours
Shapes Attitudes and Beliefs rather than Vice
Versa
07/16/12
8. A Bias for Action
A bias for getting things done
Organizational fluidity:
It refers to the need of adhocacy as a way of
corporate life.
Bureaucracy is not enough.
Chunking:
Breaking things up to facilitate
organizational fluidity and to encourage
action.
Small groups are the most visible of the
chunking devices.
07/16/12
9. A Bias for Action
Ad hoc task force:
• There aren’t many members on these task
forces,usually ten or less.
• The task force reporting level, and the
seniority of its members, are proportional to
the importance of the problem.
• The duration of the typical task force is very
limited.
• Menbership is usually voluntary.
• The task force is pulled together
rapidly,when needed,not accompanied by a
formal chartering process.
07/16/12
10. A Bias for Action
• Follow up is swift.
• No staff are assigned.
• Documentation is informal at most,and often
scant.
Project teams and project centres:
• The task force is an exciting,fluid ad hoc
device in the excellent companies. It is
virtually the way of solving and managing
thorny problems and an unparalleled spur to
practical action.
07/16/12
11. A Bias for Action
Experimenting organisation:
• Do it, fix it and try it.
• Chaotic action is preferable to orderly in
action.
• The most important and visible outcropping
of the action bias in the excellent companies
is their willingness to try things out,to
experiment.
• The cricital factor is an environment and a
set of attitudes that encourage
experimentation.
07/16/12
12. A Bias for Action
Speed and numbers:
• Eagerness and sheer number of experiments
are critical ingredients to success through
experiments.
• Under deadline pressure and with
manageable acts to perform,impossible
occurs regularly.
07/16/12
13. A Bias for Action
Experiment context:
• Experiment won’t work if the context is is
wrong.
Simplifying systems and action orientation:
• If there is a major problem,bring the right
people together and expect them to solve it.
• Ready. Fire. Aim.
• Learn from the tries. That’s enough.
07/16/12
14. Close to Customers
• The good news from the excellent companies
is the extent to which, and the intensity with
which the customers intrude into every nook
and cranny of the business -sales,
manufacturing, research, and accounting.
• Other companies talk about it; the excellent
companies do it.
07/16/12
15. Close to Customers
Service Obsession:
• Close to customer through service
concept.
• Nemeroff finds three principal themes in
an effective service orientation:
1. Intensive,action involvement on the
part of senior management.
2. A remarkable people orientation.
3. A high intensity of measurement and
feedback.
07/16/12
16. Close to Customers
Quality Obsession:
• The company’s operating principles seem to
be an individual version of the Boy Scout law
The main principles of excellence are
1. quality
2. reliability of performance and
3. loyalty in dealer relationships.
07/16/12
17. Close to Customers
Nichemanship:
• The customer orientation is by definition a way
of “tailoring” - a way of finding a particular
niche where you are better at something than
anybody else.
• Companies divide their customer base into
numerous segments so they can provide
tailored products and services. In doing so, they
take their products out of the commodity
category, and then they charge more for them.
07/16/12
18. Close to Customers
The five attributes of the companies that
are close to the customer through niche
strategies are:
2. Astute technology manipulation.
3. Pricing skill
4. Better segmenting
5. A problem solving orientation
6. Willingness to spend in order to
discriminate
07/16/12
19. Autonomy and
Entrepreneurship
• Playing the Numbers:- Not Surprisingly, most champions fail
most of the time. Management most allows a sufficient member of
project with a long enough lead-time for the characteristic 1:20
success ratio to have effect.
• Sub optimal Division :- Each division as at 3M, has it won
product development group. The message from the excellent
companies is "Small is beautiful".
• Internal Competition:- These are two ways of sorting things
out is on organization. First if driven by rules or bureaucracy and
the second is driven by interval markets and internal competition.
Internal competition entails the excellent companies high costs of
duplication, cannibalization, overlapping product etc.
• Intense Communication:- In excellent companies, there are
five attributes of communication systems that seems to foster
innovation.
07/16/12
20. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
Communication systems are
informed
Communication intensity is
extraordinary
Communication is given physical
support
Forcing device
The intense, informal
communication system acts as a
remarkably tight control system.
07/16/12
21. Productivity Through
People
• Treat people as adult.
• Treat them as partners.
• Treat them with dignity & respect.
• Treat them, not as capital spending and
automation, as the primary source of
productivity gains.
• Treat workers as the most important asset.
07/16/12
22. Hand on Value Driven
1. A belief in being the “ best”.
2. A belief in the importance of the details of
execution, the nuts and bolts of doing the job well.
3. A belief in the importance of people as
individuals.
4. A belief in superior quality and service.
5. A belief that most members of the
organization should be innovators and in
corollary , the willingness to support failure
6. A belief in the importance of informality to
enhance communication.
7. Explicit belief in and recognition of the
importance of economic growth and profits.
07/16/12
23. Simple Form, Lean Staff
• The organization gets paralyzed because the
structure not only does not make priorities
clear it automatically dilutes the priorities.
• The simplicity of form in excellent
companies comes from only one thing that is
lean staff, especially at the corporate level.
• Fewer administrators and more operators
07/16/12
24. Stick to the Knitting
• Excellent companies have strategies of
entering only those businesses that build on,
draw strengths from, and enlarge some
central strength or competence.
• The difference between the excellent
companies and the non-performing one is
that excellent companies don’t taste the water
with their both feet. Better yet when they
stuck a toe in new waters and failed, they
terminated the experiment quickly.
07/16/12
