My family enjoys scuba diving and the beauty of the underwater world. I certified several years ago, and to be honest have forgotten many of the details of underwater survival.

My wife just completed her final open-water dive and certification. During one of her study sessions, she asked me if I remembered my dive tables. When I indicated that I did not, she asked, "Then how do you know when you are diving in unsafe conditions?"

"I just depend on others to figure it out for me," I said.

As soon as I said it I knew that it wasn't a very good response - especially since being sloppy with such details under the water could result in serious health problems and even death.

Being sloppy in how we run the details of our businesses can be similarly hazardous to our entrepreneurial health and well-being. There exist some diving tables in the business world that, if ignored, will have a negative impact on the performance and survivability of the enterprise.

The following list is not an exhaustive review of all of the areas of a business, but it will serve to begin the process of reviewing the critical components of your firm that you cannot afford to treat sloppily:

• Financial statements. Owners and operators of businesses tend to think that financial statements are something only accountants need to review. As an owner, you need to be involved in analyzing trends, looking for theft and helping to develop pro forma statements to anticipate problems and future opportunities.
• Contracts and legal agreements. The life blood of a company is its ability to generate revenues in an orderly manner. Poorly drafted agreements can lead to disputes between you and your customers, resulting in legal entanglements, costly attorneys' fees, lost goodwill in the marketplace and delayed revenue. In the case of intellectual and real property, a sloppy contract might even lead to the loss of assets.

• Customer relationships and service. Often, the customer service department is the only group in the company other than sales that has direct contact with the client. I used to constantly remind our receptionist that she is one of the most important people in the company.
• Product quality. It is easy to assume once we have achieved a high level of product quality that it will remain that way. Wrong! We can lose control of the quality process within a day.
• Employee relations. The lives of our employees are dynamic, sometimes changing daily. Deaths, births, divorces and accidents can alter the relationship of employees to the company. A capable owner stays close to his employees, is accessible and approachable and communicates a caring and empathetic attitude. Sloppiness in relationships can lead to the loss of a key employee who perceives that the company doesn't care and is not a good employer.

The CEO does not need to do everything on the list, but he or she needs to make sure that systems are operating correctly. Once we have decided what needs to be managed, we then need to decide whether we will do it ourselves or delegate the task to someone else. Delegation is fine, but we still need to follow through in making sure that someone is paying attention to the details.

In his book, "Good to Great," Jim Collins suggests that "good is the enemy of great." It is not enough to assume that someone else is watching the dive tables. We need to take personal responsibility if our firms are to avoid sloppiness and become great.