But we disagree. We don't think the answer is to mimic the Japa-
nese. Nor do we think the solution lies with the tools of "scien-
tific" management: MBAs' analyses, portfolio theories, cost
curves, or econometric models. Instead we think the answer is as
American as apple pie. American business needs to return to the
original concepts and ideas that made institutions like NCR, Gen-
eral Electric, International Business Machines (IBM), Procter &
Gamble, 3M, and others great. We need to remember that people
make businesses work. And we need to relearn old lessons about
how culture ties people together and gives meaning and purpose
to their day-to-day lives.

The early leaders of American business such as Thomas
Watson of IBM, Harley Procter of Procter & Gamble, and General
Johnson of Johnson & Johnson believed that strong culture
brought success. They believed that the lives and productivity of
their employees were shaped by where they worked. These build-
ers saw their role as creating an environment -- in effect, a cul-
ture -- in their companies in which employees could be secure and
thereby do the work necessary to make the business a success.
They had no magic formulas. In fact, they discovered how to
shape their company's culture by trial and error. But all along the
way, they paid almost fanatical attention to the culture of their
companies. The lessons of these early leaders have been passed
down in their own companies from generation to generation of
managers; the cultures they were so careful to build and nourish
have sustained their organizations through both fat and lean
times. Today these corporations still have strong cultures and still
are leaders in the marketplace.

We think that anyone in business can learn a lot from these
examples. A major reason the Japanese have been so successful,
we think, is their continuing ability to maintain a very strong and
cohesive culture throughout the entire country. Not only do indi-
vidual businesses have strong cultures, but the links among busi-
ness, the banking industry, and the government are also cultural
and also very powerful. Japan, Inc., is actually an expansion of the
corporate culture idea on a national scale. Although this homoge-
nization of values would not fit American culture on a national
scale, we do think that it has been very effective for individual
companies. In fact, a strong culture has almost always been the
driving force behind continuing success in American business.

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