Re: Holist Extremism, Gold Stars, Motivational Development, Etc.

[Mike Tveite <mike@tetradgroup.com>]

Kromkowski@aol.com wrote:

> MT wrote:
>
> <<For goodness sake, a System of Profound Knowledge is a system! That means
> that if we take it apart and study the components separately we will lose its
> essential character.>>
>
> There is a kind of extremism implied in this statement.  Does the loss of
> "essential character" happen immediately upon entering into a course of study
> of how and when to prepare and use a control chart?  Does reading Deci on
> intrinsic and extrinsic motivation immediately destroy Deming's proposed
> philosophy of better management?
>
> Shall we turn Deming's philosophy into something that cannot ever be learned
> or tested?  Would a compentency matrix for the profoundly knowledgeable
> manager have only one line?
>
> Yes, yes, there are interactions among the components, and there may well be
> emergent properties (distinct from that components) arise from improvements
> in understanding this new philosophy, but let's stop this insistence that the
> components are all equal. Or that there aren't other unnamed, unknown
> components to an ever more profound knowledge? Or that for the purposes of
> growing in understanding we might focus from time to time on one aspect of
> the acknowledged component parts.
>

The context for this paragraph was that a previous post had said Deming's views
on rewards came from variation instead of from psychology. I also never said
anything about the components being equal, but by what measure could you judge
their inequality? An implication one might draw from your statement is that
there is a heirarchy; if so, I can't imagine what that would be.

By all means study the components separately. In fact, we should study other
things that might not have fit under any of the components of Deming's System of
Profound Knowledge. I have said for years that I don't think Deming's System of
Profound Knowledge represents ultimate truth. Rather, I believe it happened to
be his state of understanding when he died. If he were alive today, I am
confident that his teaching would have evolved beyond where it was in 1993.

My frustration comes when we apply the components one at a time to understand
the world, and call that Deming's view. I'll say it again: Deming articulated a
*SYSTEM* of Profound Knowledge (if this is extremism, than I proudly claim to be
an extremist). As a whole, it provides a way to look at the world that, I
believe, is fundamentally different from anything we have learned or developed
at home or in school or at work.
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