Re: Giving Deming a bad name

[Paul Ingram <bracken.berry@freeuk.com>]

Anthony:

>I am a tax-payer and former employee of Tameside council in the north of 
>England, a council with a high profile use of Dr Deming's philosophy

Could you give a potted history of how they got interested in Deming? Did 
someone do a hard-sell on them re. a version of  TQM? Or were things bad 
enough that the need for improvement and change was obvious to everyone, 
and something had to be seen to be done?

Talking of Local Government, what do we feel is the right Deming way to 
deal with corruption?  Is it the exception or can we include it in the 
rules?  Can it be managed? Accepted? Can you lead people out of it, as a 
culture? At its most benign, Management  can still  throw up quite a 
cloud of unknowing to avoid change; and the existence of protective not 
to say paranoid networks within labyrinthine Local Authorities can 
militate  against any real improvement in quality, for ever and a day; 
because they can be the gatekeepers, too. So who's to deal with the 
'issue'?


Paul Ingram

Shropshire, England.