Pursuing Excellence: A Values-Based, Systems Approach to Help Companies Become More Resilient

A Practical Case for Resilience Through Values and Systems

Companies rarely become resilient by accident. Pursuing Excellence examines how values, leadership, culture, systems, and customer focus connect to create the conditions for long-term performance. Brian Strobel’s approach is not a collection of slogans; it is a structured way to think about what organizations believe, what they measure, how they behave, and what customers ultimately experience.

Published by Routledge in 2021, the book speaks to leaders and managers who need to make improvement efforts stick. It treats operational excellence as something built from the inside out: first by clarifying beliefs and culture, then by aligning strategy, systems, processes, products, and the customer experience.

What the Book Explores

The material moves through four broad areas: things that are and could be, things we don’t see, things we do see, and things the customer sees. That structure gives the book a useful arc. It begins with the history and principles of quality management and continuous improvement, then turns to the less visible foundations—values, culture, leadership, strategy, systems, marketspace—before moving into people, processes, products, and customer assurance.

• Values and beliefs: why organizations need to document, measure, and validate what they claim to stand for.
• Culture and leadership: the difference between leadership and management, and how culture shapes “the way things get done around here.”
• Strategy and systems: aligning goals, deploying strategic intent, managing complexity, and thinking in terms of risk, opportunity, and robustness.
• People and processes: engaging teams, improving the rules for how work gets done, and understanding why good people can still make poor decisions within flawed systems.
• Customers and products: why “why” dominates “what,” and how customer assurance and external focus shape excellence.

Who It Is For

This is a considered read for business leaders, quality and operational excellence professionals, managers responsible for improvement programs, and teams working on organizational change. Readers looking for a quick checklist may find the book more reflective than tactical, but that is part of its value: it asks deeper questions about the beliefs and structures underneath performance.

Why It Remains Relevant

Resilience is not only about surviving shocks. It is about building organizations that can adapt because their values, systems, and people are aligned. Strobel’s framework brings quality management, systems thinking, and leadership into one conversation, making the book useful for anyone trying to move improvement from a project to a way of operating.

Start With the System You Already Have

If your organization is changing—or needs to—Pursuing Excellence offers a values-based lens for seeing the whole picture. It is a book for readers who want to understand why excellence is sustained in some companies and elusive in others, and what leaders can do to build more resilient systems around the work people actually do.