In Search Of Excellence: Lessons From Americas Best-Run Companies presents to the readers some of the people-oriented, action-stimulating and profit-maximizing measures that can be adopted by an organization with successful results, in a very practical and accessible manner. It is an in-depth study about the art and science of management, employed by some of Americas leading companies in the 1980s, that boast of high profitability and tremendous innovation. In this book, the authors detail eight... themes that are common to the organizations that were chosen for the study, and which have contributed to their exponential growth.

A chapter each has been dedicated to the themes, which range from quick decision making to ensuring that the organization runs with minimal staff. The other themes discussed across the book are learning from customers, fostering an environment that encourages entrepreneurship and innovation, a committed management, treating employees as a source of quality, autonomy in shop-floor activities combined with centralized values, and making sure that a company sticks to a business that it best knows. A few of the companies talked about include IBM, McDonalds, Boeing, Johnson ; Johnson, Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments.

In Search Of Excellence: Lessons From Americas Best-Run Companies was named by Bloomsbury, UK, as the Greatest Business Book of All Time". It sold 3 million copies in its first 4 years after it was published in 1982, and was the most widely held library book in America between 1989 and 2006. A Forbes 500 panel of experts had voted it as the most influential business title in the last 20 years.