What America Does Right - Hardcover

Waterman Jr., Robert H; Waterman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393035972 ISBN 13: 9780393035971

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994

Synopsis

True or false? "America is falling behind in world competition." The surprise answer is "false." Recent research on industrialized nations shows that American workers outproduce workers in Germany and France by 20 percent, workers in Britain by over 30 percent, and Japanese workers by over 60 percent. The reason has nothing to do with technology, worker attitude, or worker skill. In this incisive, anecdotal book Robert H. Waterman, Jr., looks at some of the best American firms and concludes that the key to strategic advantage is organization: they are organized to focus on the things that motivate their own people, and organized to anticipate customer needs. Waterman's crisp case studies give us an insider's view of why these firms are so good. For example, we'll see how Procter & Gamble gets a productivity advantage of 30-40 percent through a work force that's essentially self-managing. (Procter & Gamble developed this system over thirty years ago and considered it so strategic that they wouldn't talk about it until now.) We'll see how a set of strongly held, shared values - not strategy - built the AES Corporation from a start-up eleven years ago to a company whose market value today is close to $1.7 billion. Waterman also gives us an in-depth look at how companies such as Merck and Rubbermaid maintain a strategic edge through raw innovation. In 1993 Rubbermaid invented 365 new products, one for every day of the year. How did they manage it? Waterman's argument is firmly grounded in specific details and in firsthand observation. But his message about American competitiveness transcends any particular case history or industry. All of us can learn from the example of these firms that inone way or another strike out into new frontiers of excellence.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert H. Waterman, Jr. is the bestselling author of The Renewal Factor, Adhocracy, and What America Does Right, and the director of The Waterman Group, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Still in search of instructive excellence, consultant Waterman (The Renewal Factor, etc.) offers a relentlessly upbeat briefing on what he views as the managerial lessons to be learned from presumptively paradigmatic US enterprises. Citing data from the OECD as well as other sources to argue (contrary to popular belief) that per capita wealth creation in America remains appreciably higher than in other industrial powers (France, Germany, Japan, et al), the author focuses on a relatively small sample of domestic companies and institutions. In addition to blue-chippers like AES (n‚ Applied Energy Services), Federal Express, Levi Strauss, Motorola, Proctor & Gamble, Rubbermaid, and Sun Microsystems, their ranks include Public School 94 in the Bronx, New York. Waterman argues that his chosen role models outperform their rivals (or counterparts) because they are better organized to meet the needs of employees and consumers. This claim may strike some as overstated in light of P&G's recently announced plans to lay off 12% of its worldwide work force by mid-1995. Be that as it may, the author commends a host of operational and personnel policies he observed in practice at various venues: ceding greater control to lower-level workers; establishing training programs that permit promotion from within; recognizing accomplishment; and making a genuine commitment to quality. While much of Waterman's counsel is unexceptionable, he does embrace the trendy concept of stakeholders, which holds that for-profit concerns should consider the (often conflicting) interests of all their constituencies, e.g., customers, employees, host communities, and vendors as well as those of shareholders. As a practical matter, this invitingly feel-good theory, the author concedes, has yet to achieve much acceptance in the capitalist system. The bottom line: anecdotal happy talk that promises far more in the way of socioeconomic rewards than its New Age precepts can plausibly deliver. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0393035972
• ISBN 13: 9780393035971
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318