Re: Operational definitions versus anecdotal

[FVoehl@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/21/01 5:34:32 AM, Kromkowski@aol.com writes:

<< there is no actual management or leadership (at best, we are "a 
letters to the editor" society.) -- without which it seems to me that 
improvement is really impossible.

No "editor" nor "defenders of an editor" should take these comments 
personally; just stating the facts. >>

The "facts" is an overused expression, Dr. Deming once said of Dr. Hitoshi 
Kume's brilliant analysis on TQC.  Everyone assumes he knows but no one 
actually knows, for people tell stories from their own experiences, such as 
JD in this case. Each believes his or her own experience to be correct, but 
are they?  Dr. Kume once said that discussions alone cannot eliminate 
troubles and words cannot always describe "facts." What is white may turn out 
to be black.

Because of the success of science, there is a kind of pseudoscience--a 
science which is not a science.  They don't do things scientifically, they 
follow the forms, they gather the data, they do such-and-such and so forth, 
but they haven't found out anything yet.  And what happens is that we get 
experts on everything that sound like they are sort of scientific experts.  
But they are not scientific.  They sit at the computer and they make up 
something like:  tomatoes grown with fertilizer that is organic is better for 
you than those grown with fertilizer that inorganic.  This may be true and 
may not be true, but it hasn't been effectively demonstrated one way or the 
other.  But they'll sit there on the computer or typewriter and make up all 
this stuff as if it is science and then become an expert on foods, organic 
foods and so forth.  There's all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over 
the place.

I may be wrong, and maybe they do know these things, but I don't think so.  I 
have found out the hard way how difficult it is to get to really know 
something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, and how 
easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself.  When you know what it really 
means to know something, and see how they get their information, then it is 
hard to believe that they know it, for they haven't done the work necessary, 
the checks necessary, and the care necessary.  My suspicion is that they 
don't know, that this stuff is wrong and they're intimidating people.

If anyone expects the DEN to give all the answers to the wonderful questions 
that we are dealing with, then I think they could easily become disillusioned 
and look for some magic answers to these problems and questions.  To say 
that: <<there is no actual management or leadership (at best, we are "a 
letters to the editor" society) -- without which it seems to me that 
improvement is really impossible>> is missing the mark.  Self-management is 
better for some than poor leadership.  It is much more interesting to live 
not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.  The DEN provides 
approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty 
about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are 
many more things that I don't know anything about.  I may think about it a 
little bit, but if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else.  I 
don't have to know the answer and I don't feel frightened about not knowing 
things, and I don't need a so-called leader to tell me differently.  

Improvement is indeed possible without management or leadership.  One of the 
greatest dangers to modern society is the possible resurgence and expansion 
of the ideas of thought control by leadership--such as Hitler had, or Stalin 
in his time, or the Chinese leaders of the past thirty years.  My interest in 
the DEN is to simply find out more about the world and the teachings of Dr. 
Deming, and the more I find out, the better it is to find out.

Frank Voehl (FVoehl@aol.com)