Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, customer focus, continual improvement, six sigma.
February 7, 2008
Using Books to Ignite Improvement

Leader's Handbook cover graphic

Recommended Reading From an Employee-Owned Company

Soon after, another Web Industries employee picked up “Kanban Made Simple,” a guide for adopting Kanban, Toyota Motor Corp.’s just-in-time manufacturing process by John M. Gross and Kenneth R. McInnis. Within weeks, other employees were reading it. A group of machine operators used the book’s ideas to slash chronic late deliveries and improve scheduling processes.

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

2 Responses to “Using Books to Ignite Improvement”

  1. Mark Graban Says:

    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.

  2. Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » 6 Leadership Competencies Says:

    As those familiar with Dr. Deming will immediately note those are very closely tied to Deming’s 4 areas of management…

Leave a Reply



Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog © curiouscat.com 2005-2009 powered by WordPress

Internal Links

Author

John Hunter

Tags


Full tag could

Other

Search Blog

Web Search

Management Improvement web search

Recent Comments

  • Jaky Astik: Where there are no problems there is no leadership, because then, no one cares.
  • Tim McMahon: Your post and Shaun’s comments are quite right. I think the there is an evoluation in thinking as...
  • Richard Kunkle, MD: Great blog. What is intriguing here is that we as physicians have focused here on the needs of...
  • Josh: When I buy a car, I want to be able to drive the car to work/home which is about a 20 minute commute each way...
  • Alex: Wow, Google has done it again. This is truly going to change the dynamics of communication as we know it today....
  • Anonymous: We should all be grateful that Toyota is helping out the US economy. My cousin landed a job with Toyota...
  • Oscar: That’s pretty cool from one side but 4 hours to refill the tank is too much time i think. I’d...
  • shaun sayers: This is quite a significant issue Jon, and there is a fine balance to be found On the one hand I...

Archives

February 2008
M T W T F S S
« Jan   Mar »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
2526272829