I would tell you that pumping out almost thirty books in under twenty years on a wide range of subjects was a very poor move — it diluted the marketplace for your presence and positioned you as a generalist in a world where specialists are key. It suggests that you are more driven to just write and pump things out than spend the time actually building something slowly and intentionally and then focusing on just that. But maybe this was always your goal, and if so, great, but recognize that as much as traditional publishing is not for you, you are not for traditional publishers either. — J.S. Managing Director, Editorials at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
As this quote illustrates, criticism from the perspective of ignorance and traditional thinking, rooted in outdated preconceptions, is of little use. What J.S. failed to realize is that all of my books fall within the genre of management, in the subcategories of progressive management and classical management. These two areas of specialization were necessitated by the research questions that I pursued. My work has been built slowly and intentionally since 1998. Now, had J.S. known my doctorate was in materials engineering and the 10 peer-reviewed research papers I wrote, he might have inched closer to a “generalist” characterization.
What my critic, entrenched in the publishing world, also fails to realize is that I endeavoured to apply what I learned from participating in genba kaizen to writing books. Specifically, one-piece flow, reduce the lead-time to publication, and respond to customer demand by answering the questions that Lean professionals had as well as pursue my own research agenda (click here to read my book writing tips). Both of these, as well as the depth of the subject matter, necessitated a prolific output of books over a 20-year period. J.S. also seems to not recognize that being a prolific author is not uncommon. And in my case, I had an objective that differed from publishers, whose primary objective is to make money: I wanted to get everything I know about the subject in writing for the benefit of current and future generations. My primary interest is to make the information available to people so they can pull it when they need it (i.e., just-in-time pull system). Book sales are secondary, but also important as they are the source of funds for my research. I may have stopped writing books, but my research is still ongoing (so please buy my books 🙏).
“Ironically (or not), your writing has a delightful continuous flow of small size batches of great information. It’s a motivator to read again from time to time.” — Bruno Vasquez
People generally like shorter books, and shorter books help an author create a flow of books. Sixty-eight percent of my books are less than 200 pages; I thought that to be the better approach than writing a few 500-page books every five years or so. Overall, I wrote an average of 1.4 books per year since 2003 and 1.75 since 2007. And of course, the content must always be original and interesting. My goal, aways, was to be original — no me-too books about leadership, Toyota, value stream maps, gemba walks, etc.
In characterizing me as a generalist, my critic, J.S., missed the fact that I very much specialized, the benefits of which are captured by Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg:
If people have shown that they can go deep and do one thing really well, then they’ve probably gained experience in the art of learning something and taking it to an excellent level, which is generally pretty applicable to other things.
Yes, the art of learning. It is applicable to other things.