> One of their front-page selling points is that they use "ancient techniques" from books written prior to the year 2000, because presumably everything newer than that is bad?

I get what you are saying here.

At the same time, was reading Deming's last book [0] and there is a great line that I have never seen in any recent business books:

"The organizational chart is usually a pyramid. The main benefit of this style of chart is to clarify who reports to whom. Notably absent from this chart: the customer."

I've also worked at firms filled with very smart people who had no concept (or were not incentivized) to think about the Theory of Constraints, Total Quality Management or that the firm is supposed to work as a team and not a collection of fiefdoms.

What I'm saying is: just because a book was written before 2000 doesn't make it irrelevant.

0 - https://amzn.to/4waEjA2