Using Books to Ignite Improvement
Posted on February 7, 2008 Comments (3)
Recommended Reading From an Employee-Owned Company
In the 18 months since Mr. Quarrey picked up “Ideas Are Free,” he’s gotten back into business books – largely because of his enthusiastic employees. Web Industries, a Hartford, Conn., manufacturer, is a 100% employee-owned company. “It’s a very weird experience to be in your factory and have people comparing business books they’ve read,” he says.
There are excellent books available that would help you improve your organization. I have mentioned some of my favorite management books before but here some are again: The Leader’s Handbook by Peter Scholtes, Toyota Talent by Jeffrey Liker and David Meier, Six Sigma Beyond the Factory Floor by Ron Snee and Roger Hoerl, Lean Solutions by James Womack and Daniel Jones and The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education by W. Edwards Deming.
My main suggestion is to read excellent books regardless of when they were written. The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor, Fourth Generation Management by Brian Joiner, and many others might not be new but they offer more than almost any new books you will find. There is nothing wrong with excellent new books, just don’t think that because a book is 10 or even 30 years old your organization has already adopted most of the good ideas. In my experience, if more than 20% of the books you read for management ideas in the last few years are less than 5 years old you are making a mistake and would benefit a great deal from reading books written earlier.
Related: Curious Cat management article library – Curious Cat Management Improvement books – Workplace Management review – Ackoff’s New Book, Management f-Laws
3 Responses to “Using Books to Ignite Improvement”
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February 7th, 2008 @ 7:08 pm
Some great books in that list. I was a real fan of Joiner's Fourth Generation Management when I read it a few years back…. great stuff.
November 16th, 2008 @ 11:12 am
As those familiar with Dr. Deming will immediately note those are very closely tied to Deming’s 4 areas of management…
August 3rd, 2011 @ 9:54 am
Top sellers so far this year (adding together all editions, including Kindle):
1) The Leader’s Handbook
2) Statistics for Experimenters
3) New Economics
4) Abolishing Performance Appraisals…