In Search of Excellence - the book

McKinsey's John Larson asks colleague Tom Peters to step in at the last minute and make a presentation that leads to "In Search of Excellence." Thus Tom Peters spawns the birth of the "management guru business."

One remarkable fact about In Search of Excellence remains - Its list of companies have held up quite well over time. The book focuses on 43 "excellent" companies. And while it contains a few embarrassing picks, such as Atari and Wang Labs, the companies Peters and Waterman called excellent have easily outperformed the market averages.

Since October 1982, when the book was published, the companies on the authors' list earned an average total return of 14.1% annually. This return outdistanced the DJIA companies, which earned an average annual return of 11.3%, and the S&P, whose companies earned an average annual return of 10.1%.

In other words, if you invested $10,000 in the Excellence index 20 years ago and then did nothing at all, you would have $140,050. An equal investment in the Dow would have yielded just $85,500.

Notes

Excellence Sought--And Found (Forbes)