Narrating the Management Guru: In Search of Tom Peters by David Collins

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In response to this 30 The early works of Tom Peters commission Peters, Waterman and another colleague, David Anderson, embarked on a programme of research between late 1979 and early 1980 that some two years later would constitute the backbone of the, now famous book, which was published in 1982. In a nutshell this is the tale of how McKinsey and Co came to an appreciation of the core elements of what is now termed ‘business excellence’. Yet to understand, properly, the genesis of the excellence project we must move from a consideration of McKinsey’s internal machinations to examine the factors in the wider socio-economic context, which made the core message of In Search of Excellence both real and immediate to America’s managers and decisionmakers.

The 2003 text which Roberts lists is actually entitled Re-imagine! and not Re-imaging! It is difficult to view Re-imagine! as a simple sequel to A Passion for Excellence. A sequel is commonly defined as a continuation of an earlier story. Now while it might be accurate to portray A Passion for Excellence as a sequel to In Search of Excellence and while there are certain thematic continuities that link Peters’ first to his later book (doubtless similar continuities also appear in the works of Roberts), it is difficult to view Re-imagine!

Stating a positive solution to the problem identified, however, proved to be more problematic. In an attempt to bring some greater coherence to these stirrings concerning the limitations of what Peters is wont to dismiss as ‘conventional’ thinking on strategy and structure (see Peters and Waterman, 1982), McKinsey first paired Peters with a senior colleague – Bob Waterman – and then drafted in two academics, Anthony Athos, a pioneer in the field of corporate culture, and Richard Pascale. ) that reflected their thinking as regards the organizational practices that allow businesses to develop and to act upon strategic plans.