In Search of Excellence:

...The excellent companies are both centralized and decentralized...

...Unfortunately, this lack of similar goals has meant that American liberals have allowed themselves to become exceedingly misinformed on the subject of how corporate America works...

...For the most part, as we have said, they have pushed autonomy down to the shop floor, or product development team...

...This ignorance is especially deleterious as the conservative economists, technical analysts, and other money specialists become increasingly popular...

...They allowed some chaos in return for quick action and regular experimentation...

...His most recent book is Christian Mysticism (Franciscan Herald Press) PETER KOVLER formerly served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce in the Carter administration ties...

...Like any half-decent reporter (and like most reporters, most business analysts are useless and passive), they actually went themselves, without delegating someone else to do it or without relying on somebody else's views, and talked to hundreds of workers and executives at some of the better companies...

...and, as one consequence, they have had a relatively hard time in constructively participating in the current national debate on how to get American industry into working order...

...They are the ones, at least in the eyes of this Washington observer/reviewer, who are doing the "leading...

...As big as most of the companies we looked at are, none when we looked at it was formally run with a matrix organization structure, and some which had tried that form abandoned it...

...But what is worrisome is that the technocrats (sometimes known as business school types) who exist in labor and government as well as business, seem to be grabbing ahold of our futures...

...The Peters and Waterman idea is simple: These guys decided to go directly to a dozen successful American companies and see for themselves how those things worked...

...Analysts didn't impede action...

...They do not foster we/they labor attitudes or regard capital investment as the fundamental source of efficiency improvement 5) Hands-on, value driven Thomas Watson Jr...

...Indeed, if Peters and Waterman are correct, it looks as if the old-fashioned liberal with his or her inclinations to believe in things as indefinite as on-the-job respect and equality will have the most to do with revitalizing American industry and getting people back to work and getting people back to work...

...8) Simultaneous loose-tight properREVIEWERS rosemary booth has a master's degree in city planning from Harvard and works as a community planner in Cambridge, Mass DONALD EVANS is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto FATHER WILLIAM McNAMARA, O.C.D., is founder and director of the Spiritual Life Institute...

...The innovative companies foster many leaders and many innovators throughout the organization...

...They selected eight attributes which characterized these organizations: 1) A bias for action, for getting on with it...

...Even though these companies may be analytical in their approach to decision-making, they are not paralyzed by that fact (as many others seem to be) 2) Close to the customer...

...Intellect didn't overpower wisdom...

...Given the fact that we are all currently awed by Japanese productivity and that half the business community seems eager to emulate them, it is reasuring to learn that perhaps we aren't so terrible...

...7) Simple form, lean staff...

...To restate the obvious, the nation, its business and unions, are in a mess...

...On the other hand, they are fanatic centralists around the few core values they hold dear...

...They found that "excellent companies were, above all, brilliant on the basics...

...Their conclusions are, to use their expression, "a pleasant surprise...

...These companies listened to their employees and treated them like adults...

...The excellent companies treat the rank and file as the root source of quality and productivity gain...

...Certainly, there is nothing wrong with the increased focus on how to get the economy regenerated...

...IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE LESSONS FROM AMERICA'S BEST-RUN COMPANIES Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Harper & Row, $19 95, 360 pp Peter Kovler Commerce has never been the favorite subject of America liberals because those who have devoted so much of their time and lives to equality, justice, and the other essentially moral questions of the day have not had much opportunity to learn the ins and outs of making money...

...said that "the basic philosophy of an organization has far more to do with its achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation, and timing...

...These companies learn from the people they serve...

...Still, there is a great deal of resentment out there against the dominance of the "new breed," and I think more than anything else, it is what accounts for the stunning popularity (second on the non-fiction best seller list) of In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies by Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman...

...At a time when we are repeatedly told that American institutions should be directed and operated by technical analysts, a thoughtful and well-reasoned book has come along that espouses a few old-fashioned views on how things could and should work...

...How else can it be in a nation which is now obsessed with numbers from the Federal Reserve, the departments of Labor and Commerce, the stock and bond markets and the Wall Street Jour-nal...

...They are a hive of what we have come to call champions 4) Productivity through people...

...In short, although the authors do not use such words, there is such a thing as a humanistic approach to this great big "crisis in industry...

...What are oftentimes called the "soft factors" are much more important than what our current culture would lead us to believe...

...They provide unparalleled quality, service, and reliability-things that work and last 3) Autonomy and entrepreneurship...

...The message is refreshing...

...Tools didn't substitute for thinking...

...The relative ignorance is reminiscent of what has happened in the "national security" debate where the Defense Department and their suppliers have familiarity with the details and the jargon of their profession and carry much more weight than they should...

...6) Stick to the knitting Robert Johnson, former Johnson and Johnson Chairman, put it this way "Never acquire a business you don't know how to run...