Re: Profound Knowledge is... (?)

[John Seddon <john@vanguardconsult.co.uk>]

JD Kromkowski wrote:
>
>You know the more I think about it, the more I begin to think that the whole 
>concept of a "system of profound knowledge" is a really dumb construct. 

And I would like to register my agreement.  I also thought Phil had a great
start to this collection of threads (Deming placed greater emphasis on
variation - I have been reading his 1950 seminar and what Deming taught
would support Phil's argument).

Furthermore, many members of this list are inclined to ignore a very
important thing - they assume SoPK is a system and go on to argue that one
must see all the parts etc.

But SoPK is not a system, it is an idea.  An organisation IS a system, we
may use the SoPK to help us understand an organisation and if it fails us
we may seek better models.  But SoPK is not a system.

So why do I agree with JDK? Because many seem to be slave to this idea
without thinking about it.  When I first met the British Deming
Association's 'Psychology Interest Group' I found they were 'populating the
Psychology box' with anything psychological.  Is that what Deming wanted us
to do?  I doubt it.  I agree with JDK - that SoPK is a dumb construct -
because it has led people to 'do a rule 4'.  For example, people work on
'what is the relationship between Deming's ideas and Transactional
Analysis'.  Someone should tell these people the answer is less than 5% at
best and could be negative ;-)

I have said before that I abhor the amount of 'therapeutic' junk being
accommodated into the BDA's activities.  And it seems to me the only
'therapy' Deming did was a glass of something strong in the evenings and
church music at the weekends.

Here is just one recent example of rule 4 in action.  Get everyone in a
room and let them decide their own agenda.  Have them agree that all are
equal, that all have something to contribute and that no-one should pursue
something they feel they are already decided upon.  What is this called?
Open-space technology.  I would say it is a design guaranteed to create
rule 4. The blind leading the blind.  Lucky if you learn, if you do you may
learn the wrong thing.

I also agree with Kromkowski's general argument that Deming's
transformation came from his experience of 'making the work work
differently and better'.  This I found true for myself, and you can see the
same in the writings of Ohnoe and Shingo.

It was a psychologist who said: "The particular is often general" and I
believe Kromkowski has hit the particular that matters.

Just as a rejoinder, and in the hope it does not confuse people, I would
like to propose what I believe belongs IN the psychology 'box':

1. The relationship between system (how the work is designed and
managed)and behaviour. E.g. things like.. if you measure output, people
cheat; if you design in functions you create waste etc.
2. The relationship between variation and behaviour. E.g treat common cause
as it is assignable and upset your workers; use special cause to learn from
/ improve people's performance.
3. The process of change. Specifically the what and how of a change from
the 'traditional' management paradigm to the better (systems) paradigm - I
have defined a comparison in a previous post.
4. The relationship between work design, and measures in particular, and
motivation.

On reflection, 4 may be covered by 1 - I meant 4 in the positive sense.
However, did anyone notice that all of the above start with 'how the work
works'.  To start anywhere else is to invite rule 4.

Senge did the same - took managers down the wrong path. He showed that
behaviour was governed by the system, but then led managers off to do
therapy ('personal mastery').  As I showed in the post on the beer game -
which was roundly ignored - Taichi Ohnoe would have had a better solution -
all parties would have made the work work better. Senge's solutions, which
were not really solutions, made the managers victims (solution 1 'take two
aspirins and wait', solution 2 'only order what you sell' - both dependent,
victim behaviours).  Maybe that's why they ended up in therapy :-)

Yours ever..

John

John Seddon
Vanguard
http://www.vanguardconsult.co.uk
(44)1280-822255
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