A Study in Profound Knowledge
The Profound Book Club
We learn from reading books together, make a difference through our rich conversations, and have fun throughout the process.
§ NOW — IN PROGRESS
Now Reading — together
Current Selection
№ XVIII
The Leader's Handbook
❦
The Profound Book Club
The Leader's Handbook
Peter Scholtes' The Leader's Handbook is a practical guide to leadership as the work of improving systems—not managing people in isolation. It helps leaders understand systems, variation, learning, and human behavior, and examine the management practices that either create pride in work or get in its way. Among its clearest applications is its critique of performance appraisals and forced rankings: why they undermine trust and cooperation, and how leaders can replace them with better feedback, development, and improvement practices.
Connection to Profound Knowledge
Scholtes was a close colleague of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and shared the seminar platform with him from 1987 to 1993, helping organizations learn Deming's management philosophy. The Leader's Handbook makes Deming's System of Profound Knowledge concrete: understanding systems and variation; building knowledge through prediction, data, and learning rather than guesswork; and applying psychology by leading with respect rather than fear, blame, or ranking. Where Deming identified the annual performance appraisal as one of the diseases of management, Scholtes explains in plain language why appraisal-based management fails—and how leaders can redesign the conditions of work so that cooperation, learning, and improvement become possible.
Meeting Schedulefall 2026
Fridays · 8:00–9:00 AM Eastern (US) · remotely via Zoom
Week 1Oct 16Chapters 1–2
Week 2Oct 23Chapter 3
Week 3Oct 30Chapter 4
Week 4Nov 6Chapters 5–6
Week 5Nov 13Chapters 7–8
Week 6Nov 20Chapter 9
—Nov 27No meeting · U.S. holiday weekend
Week 7Dec 4Chapter 10
Additional Resources
- The Germ Theory of Management— Myron Tribus
§ NEXT — IN QUEUE
Up Next — starting soon
Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery
It is an especially fitting read for the Profound Book Club: a practical exploration of how to distinguish signal from noise, understand variation, see the system behind recurring problems, and choose interventions that lead to lasting improvement rather than change theater. The book weaves its teachings through a fictional software-delivery storyline, giving the ideas a concrete, recognizable context reminiscent of The Phoenix Project. Alongside the narrative, Hendrickson and Tosi draw on statistical process control, systems thinking, and economic theory to help us frame problems as testable hypotheses, reveal causal relationships, and avoid "solutions" that merely shift problems elsewhere.
§ I. — A CHRONOLOGY
Books We’ve Read — in sequence
Each selection connects, in some way, to Dr. Deming's System of Profound Knowledge — whether written by Deming himself, by those who worked alongside him, or by thinkers whose work illuminates the same fundamental ideas about systems, variation, knowledge, and people.
- 2023.08
Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge — John Willis
See conversation - 2023.10
The World of W. Edwards Deming — Cecilia S. Kilian
See conversation - 2024.01
Wiring the Winning Organization — Gene Kim & Steven Spear
See conversation - 2024.04
Win-Win — John Dues
- 2024.06
Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn — Katie Anderson
See conversation - 2024.09
Deming & Goldratt — Domenico Lepore & Oded Cohen
- 2024.11
Idealized Design — Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson & Herbert J. Addison
- 2025.01
The New Economics — W. Edwards Deming
- 2025.04
Rebels of Reason — John Willis & Derek Lewis
See conversation - 2025.06
Sys-Tao — Bob Browne
- 2025.07
Deming's Road to Continual Improvement — William W. Scherkenbach
See conversation - 2025.09
Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows
- 2025.11
Twenty Things You Need to Know — Donald J. Wheeler
See conversation - 2026.01
Out of the Crisis — W. Edwards Deming
- 2026.02
The Phoenix Project — Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
See conversation - 2026.06
Sidewinder — Dr. Ron Westrum
See conversation - 2026.08
Leadership Is Language — L. David Marquet
See conversation - 2026.10
The Leader's Handbook — Peter Scholtes
§ II. — IN THE OPEN
Conversations — continued elsewhere
Some of what we've read together has spilled out into the wider world — into LinkedIn posts, comment threads, and conversations that pull others into the orbit.
§ III. — OF INTEREST
Worth Your Attention — elsewhere
Events, talks, and resources that orbit the same questions we wrestle with in the club — promoted here because they're worth your time.
Event · 2-Day Seminar
Deming Strategies for Sustainable Success: Innovate, Streamline, Lead
Nov 6–7, 2026 at Fordham's Lincoln Center — two days with Deming experts, working a real challenge through the system behind it.
VisitVideo Series · The Deming Institute
Deming's 14 Points — video series
A walk through the Fourteen Points, one at a time, from the institute that stewards Deming's work.
Visit— Join the conversation —
Curious enough to read with us?
We meet weekly, remotely via Zoom — Fridays · 8:00–9:00 AM Eastern (US)
Get in Touch