In Search of Excellence in retrospect.
10/13/2003
In Search of Stupidity is an amusing reply to the serious tone of the late-80s bestseller by Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies, which praised organizations such as Wang, IBM, Atari, Data General, and others. More than twenty years later it is clear that not all of them have fared very well. Chapman—a marketing specialist—uses a lively and accessible style to describe many examples of high-tech blunders. His message: "The race goes not to the strong, nor swift, nor more intelligent, but to the less stupid." Sometimes searching for stupidity, he says, teaches us much better lessons than searching for excellence. And it might be more amusing.