Out of the Crisis (1982), by W. Edwards Deming
This is the book that first articulated (without using the term) Total Quality Management, the now-ubiquitous idea that the quality of products and services, and their continuous improvement, is the responsibility of a broad range of corporate stakeholders, from managers and workers to suppliers and even customers. Deming is widely credited (along with Taiichi Ohno) with introducing systematic quality measurement and improvement techniques to Japanese manufacturing in the 1960s, and Out of the Crisis brought his revolutionary ideas to U.S. businesses. The 14 key management principles enumerated in the book directly contradicted many standard practices of the era — including production quotas, "zero defect" slogans, and management by inspection — and became a template for modern management techniques.