Dr Oliver Hartwich: In Search of Kiwi Excellence

One of the first management books I ever read was Tom Peters’ A Passion for Excellence. I must have received it in the late 1980s from a family friend. Though I am not sure why a teenager would care about US business practices, I read it anyway.

What stuck with me was an anecdote about a US producer of floor cleaning equipment that started exporting to Japan. As soon as it did, complaints from its Japanese customers flooded in. Apparently, the machines leaked hydraulic oil.

The company’s chief executive wanted to know what was wrong and was surprised to discover all their products leaked. It was only the new Japanese customers who demanded quality. Meanwhile, the Americans were content to wipe the floor after the faulty machines had just cleaned it.

The Americans forgot what excellence looks like. They no longer expected it. They were not demanding it. And they only stumbled across it when their new customers pointed it out.