HANDS-ON, VALUE DRIVEN IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE
By: Thomas J. Peter and Robert H. Waterman Jr.
Let us suppose that we are asked for one all-purpose bit of advice for management, one truth that we were able to distill from the excellent companies research. We might be tempted to reply, figure out your value system. Decide what your company stands for. What does your enterprise do that gives everyone the most pride? Put yourself out ten or twenty years in the future. What would you look back with greatest satisfaction?
We call the fifth attribute of the excellent companies," hands-on, value driven". We are struck by the explicit attention they pay to values and by the way in which their leaders have created exciting environments through personal attention, persistence and direct intervention-far down the line.
In Morale, John Gardner says " Most contemporary writers are reluctant or embarrassed to write explicitly about values." Our experience is that most businessmen are loath to write about, talk about and even take seriously values systems. To the extent that they do consider them at all, they regard them only as vague abstractions. As our colleagues Julien Philips and Allan Kennedy note, "Tough minded managers and consultants pay much attention to the value system of an organization. Values are not "Hard" like organization structures, policies and procedures, strategies, or budgets." Philips and Kenny are right as a general rule but, fortunately wrong- as they are the first to say - about the excellent companies.
