Re: Seeing the invisible

[Alan Meekings <alan@meekings.demon.co.uk>]

Oh dear, oh dear!

When I responded recently to David Kerridge's message about "Seeing the
invisible", I thought I was replying privately to David himself.  I had
no idea my message would be read by the DEN at large.

May I ask those of you who actually read my earlier message to treat the
news of my latest consulting assignment in confidence, please.

It seems my association of the word "meaningless" with Dr Deming's
diagram of "production viewed as a system" has stirred something of a
hornet's nest.

Had I known my response to David would be read by the wider DEN
community, I'm sure I would have chosen my words more carefully.
"Trivial" would probably have been a better word than "meaningless".
But I suppose I've now upset even more people than last time around!

What I like about the DEN is that I've learned a huge amount from it by
following its correspondence over the years.  If I had a concern, it's
that many contributors seem neither to listen nor even care what others
are saying if it conflicts in any way with their assumptions and
experience.

Help me understand why no-one thought to ask me, "Alan, what makes you
think Dr Deming's diagram would be 'meaningless' in this situation?
This seems at odds with my own experience.  I'd be interested to know
what makes you say that."

Then we could have a dialogue, rather than a simple exchange of
assertions.

As it happens, I was employee number six in Europe in what is now
acknowledged to be the largest change management consulting firm in the
world.  For over 12 years, I've been consulting with and for the CEOs of
billion dollar corporations.  Everything I do is informed by my best
current understanding of the Deming management philosophy.  I've lived
day-to-day for a very long time now with the challenges of bringing this
perspective to bear in practice.

I think I might have something useful to contribute to the DEN.  But,
frankly, I've been reluctant to share my thoughts and experience for
fear my naive and partial understanding of the Deming philosophy would
be subject to critical dissection in public. 

Over the years as a DEN subscriber, I've watched as other contributors
have had their views "rubbished" by people who quote Dr Deming out of
context - not necessarily in the normal sense of that phrase but
certainly in terms of not understanding the context of the situation.

Some of the responses so far to my unintended contribution only
reinforce my view that people are not listening or trying to understand
the context.

In fact, the CEO I referred to in my original message already
understands the need to optimise the performance of his business as a
whole.  Indeed, just one of our explicit objectives is to create "one
company", optimising the performance of the retail channels, the airline
and the holiday operations which were previously run as separate profit
centres.  In this particular context, for this particular CEO, Dr
Deming's diagram would be trivial.

To help this business do what needs to be done overall, we've assembled
a joint team of over 220 people.  You really have to know what you're
talking about to manage a successful intervention on this scale.  The
results, as they come through, will benefit the people in the business,
its customers, suppliers and shareholders alike.  The process we go
through will be a learning experience for the organisation as a whole,
and will leave it better able to tackle critical issues and sustain
continual improvement in the future.

What interests me is how to accelerate the depth of understanding of the
Deming philosophy - "seeing the invisible" - throughout the
organisation, in a pragmatic way.  Sticking a copy of Dr Deming's
diagram of "production viewed as a system" under the nose of the CEO, or
handing-out copies of his books to the Directors is unlikely to help in
this situation.

I could try to explain why I think this way.  I just wonder if anyone
out there would really listen.

Regards,

Alan Meekings
+44 (0)171 340 3277
+44 (0)385 258741
alan@meekings.demon.co.uk
=====================================================================