Americans are addicted to new ideas, new books, new gurus and new methods to improve organizations. For people who often fear change, it is surprising that we are always looking for the next new solution to our old problems.

There is nothing wrong with the new, as long as we don’t forget some of the older ideas that still work. WKAR World on public broadcasting had a TV special this past spring called “Three Big Ideas: Principles for Post-Recession Success.” The show focused on three big ideas from three bestseller books that were not brand new, but still provide principles that individuals and organizations would be wise to pay attention to.

The three big ideas come from the books In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and Good to Great by Jim Collins. Many of you probably remember reading these books, and possibly using them in your workplace. I recall, while working at Entré Computer Services in the 1990s when Covey’s book came out, my boss purchased a copy for each employee at the company.

The problem most of us have is that once we read a book, even one we find useful, we tend not to reread it. We talk about it a little and maybe share the ideas with others, but then we jump to the next new author or new book. With the current economy, it would be a good time to revisit these three books, for their “big ideas.” If you missed the TV show, you can learn about it on their website and even purchase the DVD. There is a free implementation guide to download and utilize in your organization at www.the3bigideas.com.

When you are done rereading these three books, you might want to dust off a few others in your library that offer lessons and principles that would be as useful to us in 2010 as they were when the books were first written. Three others that come to mind for me are Out of the Crisis and The New Economics by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead by Tom Coens and Mary Jenkins.

Although the crisis in America that Dr. Deming wrote about was 25 years ago (when the Japanese first began overtaking our automotive and other manufacturing businesses), his theories apply just as much, if not more, in our current economic crisis.

Many people are familiar with Dr. Deming’s focus on statistics, continuous improvement and data-driven decision-making. But if you take the time to reread his books, you will see that he also emphasized the need for innovation. Deming said, “best efforts will not do it, technology will not do it"; you need to be innovative so that you are doing the right things, not just doing things right. That advice seems just as apropos today as it was when he first said those words.

Coens and Jenkins, in Abolishing Performance Appraisals, have more to teach than just why performance appraisals don’t do what we want them to do—they ask us to question our assumptions. We make many policies and procedures in the workplace based on assumptions. Unfortunately, we rarely evaluate the results when those procedures are implemented to see if we are getting the results we want and assumed we would get. For me, questioning assumptions and looking for any unintended consequences of our decisions is a lesson from Coens and Jenkins that I will always remember.

So, when you plan your next book to read for personal or professional growth, you don’t have to rely on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com for new books. Simply dust off your own library or check out the public library near you. Don’t forget the good, old ideas or books just because they weren’t written in 2010.

To learn more about Dr. Deming’s theories applied to our current economic situation, plan to attend the 2010 fall conference of The W. Edwards Deming Institute® in Ann Arbor October 29 to 31. This conference is traditionally held in Washington, D.C., or in another Midwestern state—this is our first opportunity to attend locally. For details on the conference, "Novel Approaches to System Change Across Business, Education, and Healthcare – Transformation," see www.deming.org or www.capitalquality.org.

		Adrian Bass is a quality consultant and lifelong learner, who believes that learning is a prerequisite for quality improvement. She is a board member and volunteer for the newly transformed Capital Quality Initiative, which has all the books mentioned in its resource library.