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The reading, In Search of Excellence, discusses the eight common attributes of well-run organizations. The first is a bias for action, which means that excellent companies are willing to experiment, to try, and to tolerate failure. The second attribute is simple form and lean staff, which means that these companies are constantly organizing and reorganizing, which allows them to stay flexible and fluid. The third attribute is that these companies are close to the customer, which means that they listen intently and regularly to their customers and learn from those they serve. The fourth attribute is increasing productivity through people, which means that more resources are not always better.
The reading, Out of the Crisis, discusses the “deadly diseases” that limit the success of companies. One of these diseases is management’s failure to plan for the future. The reading also discusses the concept of variability, which involves understanding that everything measured consists of normal variation and special causes that create defects. Achieving quality means recognizing the difference so that you can eliminate the special causes and control the normal variation. Finally, the fourteen steps that management must take to transform their organizations are discussed.
The reading, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t, describes how companies transition from being average companies to great companies and how companies can fail to make the transition. Greatness is defined as financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period of time. The key to this transition are “level 5 leaders, which are leaders who have both personal humility and professional will. These leaders would define success as creating something great that will outlast their time at the helm. They are the kind of people who do not point to themselves as the cause for an organization’s success.
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