SV: Hillside Yellers?

[Øgland, Petter <petter.ogland@skatteetaten.no>]

Rip said,

"I think those who immerse themselves in the Deming Philosophy focus on all
four elements in the System of Profound Knowledge. Understanding the theory
of variation and systems thinking, though, is not enough. I think that once
you begin to gain an appreciation for a system you begin to see that the
knowledge and psychology components are also important."

The most important thing Deming said, in my opinion, is that "without theory there is no knowledge".  I think this is the basis for all systematic management (Taylor, Shewhart, Deming, Juran, ...).  Deming and Shewhart wanted to turn the workplace into a laboratory in order to carry out efficienty experiments, just like Taylor and Mayo had before them.  Unless people understand this, I think it is very difficult to grasp the essence of Deming's contribution.

Why was Deming so outraged with "our current type of management"?  My impression is that he was outraged because manager only thought about the bottom line without having any sort of sound theory for how to improve the bottom line, apart from things like "work harder and smarter".  How to we know people are not working hard enough?  That was the issue Taylor and his efficiency movement tried to address, and if we read people like Ohno and Shingo, we see that Taylor is the basis for the 'Japanese Miracle', perhaps to a much larger extent than Deming and the other quality experts.

How do me make people work smarter?  This is the question Deming raises, I feel, and he gives a very simple answer.  The answer is the same as Taylor, namely that in order to make people work smarter, we need to investigate the workplace in a scientific manner, using controlled experiments.  That is the purpose of SPC, i.e. measuring whether the result of reengineering process A into process A' makes it perform better (different process average, smaller variation).

Why is it so difficult for people to understand this?  Why is it so difficult to understand Deming and the essence of empirical research?  Is it because we live in a Dilbert-world were all managers are idiots?  Or is it because they are being led astray by witch doctors speaking 'Six Sigma', 'Lean', 'Deming' etc without understanding a single word of what they are saying?  Perhaps we should feel lucky that university mathematics and physics are being lectured by professors and not management consultants.

Petter