Dot the i's, cross the t's, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.

Stellar teams are invariably made up of quirky individuals who typically rub each other raw, but they figure out - with the spiritual help of a gifted leader - how to be their peculiar selves and how to win championships as a team...at the same time.

The 'value added' for most any company, tiny or enormous, comes from the Quality of Experience provided.

In the great city of San Francisco, where I used to live, at 2 in the morning every other Victorian house has somebody who is writing the great American novel. And the city is not loaded with James Joyces or Virginia Woolfs. But entrepreneurship is about distorted views of reality.

'In Search of Excellence' - even the title - is a reminder that business isn't dry, dreary, boring, or by the numbers. Life at work can be cool - and work that's cool isn't confined to Tiger Woods, Yo-Yo Ma, or Tom Hanks. It's available to all of us and any of us.

An era similar to the one in which the black rotary phone dominated its product category may not recur anytime soon.

The top athletes are consummate pros who work obsessively at their craft. Approach yours the same way.