Great Biz Read: Out of the Crisis
Business authors and experts have proclaimed enough revolutions to fill a long shelf. Most of these turn out more like ripples than tidal waves, as a check of any bookstore’s markdown shelves will show.
Of the thousands of business books published in the last 30 years, only a handful have withstood the assaults of changing times and changing objectives to remain as relevant today as when they first came out.
This week we present five books worthy of space on any entrepreneur’s shelf–now and in the future.
First up, Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming.
Deming introduced statistical methods for quality measurement and improvement in post-war Japan, guiding its rise to manufacturing superstardom. In the 1970s, U.S. business leaders worried about Japanese inroads asked Deming for help, beginning the quality revolution here.
Deming’s teachings challenged American business practice at almost every point. Among his most revolutionary ideas were the notions that poor management–not slacker workers–was responsible for most quality problems, and the way to boost quality was to carefully measure defects and the effects of changing processes.
Although much low-hanging, quality-management fruit has been picked, increasingly rigorous applications of Deming’s theories–notably the approach called Six Sigma–can still provide significant advantage over less disciplined competitors.
Deming’s famous 14 points of management address matters far-removed from the statistical methods he’s most remembered for. Among other things, he strongly advocated a customer focus, using market demands to define the standards of good quality, long before it was popular.
Photo by MIT Press.
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