TITLE : SEARCHING FOR THE SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE.

"You're about to take an inside look at the real practices of real builders of business from Asia to Europe to North America. Some of these entrepreneurs are giants: legends in their own time. Many are unknowns: the unsung heroes of enterprise. They all offer a damning indictment of modern management theory-not debates about this technique or that, but an attack on the fundamental premises of twentieth-century management thinking." -Larry C. Farrell, in his Introduction

In this invaluable book, Larry Farrell provides the first world-wide investigation of the business practices of great entrepreneurs and their high-growth companies. Drawing on ten years of research and hands-on experience, he not only shows why "the management elite," those wonderful folks from Harvard and McKinsey, are unprepared and often unfit to build great businesses, he also describes the qualities of mind and modes of action that do build them. He does this in the most direct ways, going around the globe to spotlight the entrepreneurs who have made it happen, brilliantly analyzing the invaluable lessons they have to teach us.

These entrepreneurs may be American, English, German, Japanese, or Chinese. Their products may be autos, computers, cosmetics, hotels, or biogenetic vaccines. Debunking the myth that giant corporations are-or ever were-the engines of prosperity, he explains why big business is in big trouble, why so many big companies like those featured in In Search of Excellence are now in disarray-and why such former sacrosanct giants as General Motors and I.B.M. are in the throes of desperate reorganization. Farrell's bold and vital message is: the key to success in the twenty-first century will be old-fashioned entrepreneurism, not management science.

Using detailed examinations of legendary enterprisers like Walt Disney, Soichiro Honda, and William Lever, plus fascinating interviews with pace-setting international entrepreneurs such as Britain's Lord Forte, Japan's Harukazu Miki, and America's Dr. Edward Penhoet, Farrell distills the four bedrock principles of high-growth enterprise: a powerful sense of mission; absolute focus on customers and products; an urgency for high-speed innovation; and selfmotivated behavior at every level. His prescription for transforming bureaucracy back to enterprise is detailed and blunt; dismantle the twentieth-century corporation and start over with the entrepreneurial basics. Larry Farrell has written a landmark book-straightforward and inspiring-a nonsense blueprint for business survival and success that is destined to be a touchstone of business thinking for the rest of this century and the next.

LARRY C. FARRELL brings to this book a rich and varied background: Peace Corps volunteer, Harvard Business School graduate, young vice-president at American Express, president of the prestigious consulting firm Kepner-Tregoe, plus the task of introducing "Excellence" for Tom Peters in some twenty countries. In 1983 he founded his own business, The Farrell Company, with offices on three continents. Through it all, from blue chip consultant to struggling entrepreneur, he has become an evangelist for replacing sophisticated management theory with the common-sense basics of the spirit of enterprise. He lectures and conducts seminars on this theme for top executives throughout the world. He lives in Staunton, Virginia.

Jacket design by Neil Stuart