Deming Lens Episode #50 - What Dr. Deming Might Be Working On Today? - a podcast by The W. Edwards Deming Institute

In our 50th Deming Lens episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's System of Profound Knowledge. This month he looks at supply chain and risk management.

Show Notes

[00:00:15]
Deming Lens Episode #50 - What Dr. Deming Might Be Working On Today

[00:02:08]
1. Freedom

[00:06:04]
2. Innovation

[00:11:34]
3. Education

 

 

Transcript

[00:00:15] In the fifth year episode of The Deming Lens, we'll look at what Dr. Deming might be working on today. Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Leontes and the Deming Institute podcast, and this month I was looking at some articles. This past month I have been looking at some articles about Dr. Deming and more what people are saying lately. And it gave me the idea of talking about what what might Dr. Deming be working on today? And some of the articles that I read up to it are mostly misguided, I guess would be a word. But like I said, I don't stress about that anymore. Still making Dr. Deming relevant, even if the information is inaccurate. But, yeah, I it gave me the idea of thinking about what Dr. Deming might be working on today. And I came up with three things that he might be working on. I want to talk a little bit about freedom, which I did in episode forty eight, and potentially read from a quote from his last doctor, Deming's last interview. Second thing is innovation, and a third is education. I landed on these things just as I thought about everything that's going on around us and what what wisdom Dr. Deming might might be imparting on us today.

 

[00:02:08] So let's start with freedom. And there's this trend to really authoritarian centralization within organizations, more so than I've seen in previous years, seem to be a lot more mandates coming, whether it's from government or from authoritarian type leaders within organizations.

 

[00:02:38] And this to me, I think people are doing a lot of self reflecting after the pandemic. And one of the popular articles that is going around LinkedIn is that forty one percent of employees are thinking about resigning their jobs. And some of it's because of they have to work from home. Some of it has to do with mass mandates and a variety of other factors. And so they're they're naming this the great resignation. Now, when I think in terms of freedom. And we go back to episode forty eight in the interview, that doctor, in his last interview, Dr. Deming talked about this. And let me read again at least a part of this. What is the source of innovation? And Dr. Deming responded, The source of innovation is freedom. All we have new knowledge. Invention comes from freedom. Somebody responsible only to himself has the heaviest responsibility. Discoveries and new knowledge come from freedom. And somebody is responsible only to himself has only himself to satisfy. Then you'll have invention, new thought, new product, new design, new ideas. And this ability to be free is one of the things that I see kind of disappearing in some cases they never had. It is an ability to be free within your job, especially if you're a front line worker or an employee of an organization. And he goes on and talks about how management is basically squeezing out of the freedom from employees. And again, this is the trend that I'm I'm even seeing today. And I think this is why we're running into this great resignation that's going on in organizations today.

 

[00:04:34] And I recently watched and re read Atlas Shrugged that there is actually a three part movie to it which doesn't do the book Total Justice. I think it gets into some very the book itself gets into some very deep type thinking and it's set up in a dystopian society, but. Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, the book is is really good, and you can see a lot of things that are in Atlas Shrugged in the book, more so you have to have almost read the book for the movie to make any sense. And there are three parts to it. I think some something like five hours long in order to watch the three part movie and you have to suffer through also changes in actors between each of the three parts. So anyway, I just I wanted to bring up that Atlas Shrugged. It does give a lot of parallels to some things that we're seeing today and some of the freedoms that that maybe are being lost nearly at the organizational level, but also at the governmental level. But going back to freedom, it naturally leads to innovation, as Dr. Deming mentioned in episode forty eight.

 

[00:06:04] And actually, that's not a bad Segue to move into the second of. One of the things I think Dr. Deming would be dealing with today is innovation. And from my perspective and from looking at different societies, one of the reasons that the US has always done well is, is innovation.

 

[00:06:29] We always seem to have a lot of innovation going on. I'm not saying other countries don't, but more so with Google and Apple and there's something in the water, so to speak, within the US that allows for innovation. And when Dr. Deming talks about. Oh, and one other thing I'd mention on that is that innovation is what grows an economy. You know, I've always heard about someone made a comment recently about, you know, McDonald's automating their their whole system and, you know. Oh, well, you know, if you think capitalism was good, then look at this socialist. See, this is why socialism is good. And I'm sitting there thinking, I have never seen advancements in technology be a bad thing for society. They advance us. I remember all these fears used to hear about when we first started getting computers. You know, with information technology, all the jobs are going to go away. No, it's created a number of new jobs in project management and business analysts and developers and cybersecurity. I mean, their I.T. gave us more jobs than anything else. And this is what you see with innovation, innovation. And this is also one of the things you see in Atlas Shrugged in the book is stifling of innovation because, you know, getting ahead can be viewed as a bad thing. But Dr. Deming talked in terms of innovation off and on and both out of the crisis and the new economics. There's, I think about 18 mentions in each book about innovation.

 

[00:08:31] And Dr. Deming would talk in terms of constancy of purpose, leading to innovation. And, you know, from my perspective, one of the things that I've learned over the years from working with organizations is most organizations don't know what the business that they're in, as Dr. Deming would say. And it's partly because, as I found that their analytical thinkers, they know how to break the pieces apart when when you start to put the whole together, there's a different mindset with regards to synthetic thinking, their systems thinking, as some people use that word. So in order to get a broader view of the constancy of purpose in the business that you're in, you need to have a synthetic view or a systems view of where your organization, how it first of all, I guess, operates from a systems perspective. And then also what other systems are it? Is it a part of is your organization part of, you know, how does it fit into society? How does it fit into a number of things? And figuring that out and getting a broad constancy of purpose creates clarity about what your purpose actually is. And we've always Dr. Deming, would use the comment of. And I see this still today in mission statements and things, oh, we're going to be the best in whatever industry, but that doesn't really help if your industry is carburetors or buggy whips, which were two examples Dr. Deming use. So it's getting clarity about what the actual business is.

 

[00:10:24] A business that you're in will help lead you to innovation. And so to me, there's an order of things. And it's, first of all, developing synthetic thinking within your organization to see the whole leading to a well defined constancy of purpose within the organization, which then will allow you to innovate. And I think it goes in that particular order, at least as I found. And so this again, this connects back to do people within your organization have the freedom to to be allowed to innovate within the organization, or are they being dictated to from an authoritarian kind of centralized approach within your organization? And as I observed before, when we're talking about freedom, that I'm seeing more and more of the authoritarian kind of centralization of things.

 

[00:11:34] The third thing, education. Now, there's a lot that can be said for this and and have worked with many educators in my career. But, Dr. Deming, there's one thing I read in the new economics. What about Dr. Deming coming about education that really hit home to me, which is, you know, people are asking for better schools. And this is the quote with no clear idea how to improve education or even how to define improvement of education. And, you know, I we have a wide ranging. We have wide ranging views, there's no agreement on what the purposes of education within a school systems, and there's a lot of conflict associated with that right now. What should they be providing? What is important from a future perspective? And this goes back to still you know, I I do believe that, you know, abolishing grades, merit ratings for teachers and, you know, giving individual schools grades about how they perform on tests and things of that sort are damaging to education, as Dr.

 

[00:13:05] Deming noted. And most schools have not tried really anything different. We're getting some different things now, some welcome, some maybe not so welcome. And I think that that's it still goes to back to the initial question that was asked. You know that people are asking for better schools with no clear idea of, you know, how to improve education or how to define improvement. And I think that that's probably something Dr. Deming would be working on today. I think those are three huge topics that that he would be dealing with and learning on. And, you know, there are others working on this now. You know, within the Deming community, all three of these things are crucial to. How? Dr. Deming's philosophy is used and will survive into the future, so anyway, that few food for thought. And, you know, one of the things that if you have an opinion about this, you know, let us know you can contact me at trip therapy at Dabangg and, you know, share your thoughts of what you think Dr. Deming might be, what he might be looking at today. For the latest videos, blogs, events and information from the Deming Institute. Be sure to go to Deming dot org.

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