The Little Book of Big Management Theories

THEORY 8

PETERS AND WATERMAN’S THEORY OF MANAGEMENT

Use as a strategy to raise your organisation’s performance by listening to your customers and frontline staff.

Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote the mega hit In Search of Excellence. Their aim was to identify the key features of excellent organisations. In later books Peters expanded on these ideas.

TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS AND REMAIN SUCCESSFUL ORGANISATIONS MUST:

Use transformational leadership (see Theories 20–22) to inspire and motivate staff. For this to work managers and staff must share a common set of values and act with integrity.

Listen to the customers and frontline staff, as often managers are too remote to know what customers think, feel or want.

Recognise that product ...