Out of the Crisis

Perhaps not a perfect fit, but if I had to select one it would be Out of the Crisis by Deming. Other than that, basically all of them to some degree.

“Out of the Crisis” by Demming: helped me see the best way to manage projects isn’t always about fixing problems, it starts with reducing uncertainty. “Seeing like a state”, “Knowledge and Power”, and “Antifragile”, top down control of a system always clashes with bottom up understanding, so experts in a field need humility when working with a new system and need to learn from the people who work with it every day. “Critique of Pure Reason”, there are things we can’t know using only logic, so don’t try to use it to understand everything.

I read this one about 5 years ago, found it in the office library with a bunch of other books it was clear our managers had never read. It was eye opening in many ways (crap, nothing new in the world, literally everything I had tried to improve was also a problem 30-50 years earlier), but a very good read. Easy to take in small chunks since it's not really a narrative, you can go chapter-by-chapter or section-by-section through it as you have time.

Out of the Crisis by Edwards Deming is one of those books I think should be read by anyone who is a... human? And active professionally, I suppose.

Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - 3 or 4, including very recently. The latest time I appreciated his background as a writer and the stories behind the story much more. They’re worth a reread as adults. On the business side I read Deming’s Out of the Crisis several times. The ideas are profound but the writing is mediocre so it took a few times for it to stick.