Re: STUDENT REQUEST: Deming's Life

["Balaji Reddie" <balaji-reddie@eth.net>]

Dear Sam ,
I think the greatest tragedy is that we never really understood what the
great man wanted to say . I believe that he wanted us to think differently
( very ) so that it would eventually change the way we did things....rather
than change the way we do things to think differently .

Most of the other so-called experts in the field of Quality and related
sciences tend to give you recipies....step 1 , 2 , 3 , ...etc . and I've
actually seen people "implement" their methods which guarantee them
successes in the short term . But after a while they lose track of what they
are doing and then reach a kind of impasse..this is where Deming differs
from the others....he helps you to keep "breaking out" of your mould to do
something drastically different without the element of fear .
The System of Profound Knowledge is a kind of lens....like he used to say in
seminars he gave towards the end of his life...."I am not here to tell you
what you should do...I am here to make you see things what you normally
wouldn't see...."
My friend Henry Neave put it eloquently thus at a seminar in India......"the
fourteen points are not fourteen steps...rather....they are fourteen
consequences of his philosophy" .

Balaji