In Their Own Words

In our 40th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at the book, The Reckoning" and some of the implications of it.

Podcasts mentioned in this episode:

1. Paula Marshall

2. Kevin Cahill

3. Ed Baker

4. Monta Akin

5. Clare-Crawford and Bob Mason

SHOW NOTES

[00:00:14] Deming Institute Podcast - Episode 40
[00:00:27] Episode 40 - My Top 5 Favorite Episodes
[00:02:06] 1. Paula Marshall
[00:04:20] 2. Kevin Cahill
[00:05:17] 3. Ed Baker
[00:08:52] 4. Monta Akin
[00:10:09] 5. Clare-Crawford and Bob Mason

TRANSCRIPT

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:14] In the fortieth episode of The Deming Lens, I will go through my top five favorite podcast episodes.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:27] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast and the Deming Lens, and this is Episode 40. I thought I would switch things up a little bit. I was doing a lot of reflecting over the past week or so, thinking about all the people I've had the pleasure of interviewing for the Deming Institute podcast. So I kind of came up with lack of a better term, my five favorite podcast episodes. And there are a ton of people that merfolk every interview I've done. I've either learned something or just had great enjoyment.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:08] And talking to folks that admired the work of W. Edwards Deming, people like Alfie Kohn and David Langford and Dick Steele and Ron Moen and Cliff Norman and Dan Robertson and I could go on and on and on. There are a ton of good interviews, some better than others, as I got better at doing podcasting. But it was it has been a real enjoyment for me to learn from different people and not just gaining knowledge, but but the. History of how different people came into contact with Dr. Deming's work or him or himself. And so my top five, I'll just first name them, go through him a little bit, and I hope that you'll take an opportunity to listen to some of these folks.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:06] But my number one is Paula Marshall. Second is my inaugural interview with Kevin Cahill. My third was Ed Baker and my fourth was Monáe Aiken from Leander School District, and my fifth was Claire Crawford and Bob Mason that I had the opportunity to talk to. So let me just talk about starting with Paula Marshall. I, I love that episode so much because not only did you get a little history, but Paula Marshall is a dynamic person. She has a lot of personality. She's fun to talk to. And she owns a company called Bamma Companies, and they make the apple pies for McDonalds all over the world and still do. And so she runs this family, basically family initiated and family owned business. And we got into a conversation about performance appraisals. And I wish I would have known about better audio quality back in those days because is one of the early interviews. But my interview with her is a little bit sketchy on the audio.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:03:19] But overall, it was one of those interviews that just I got a lot of energy from it, like a lot of energy from Paula Marshall and talking about her experience in having poor quality at Bamma companies and how she was kind of nudged towards going to one of Dr. Deming's four day seminars, her interactions with them, but also just how he interacted with her and going and moving away from performance appraisals and what she had done up to that point. I'll let you listen to the episode itself. But and I later had the opportunity to meet Paula at a couple of Deming Institute events. But I think you will enjoy it if you haven't if you've not listened to some of the early interviews. Again, I apologize about some of the quality of it. I was the no, really what I was doing at the beginning. Now we're six years later. Seven years later.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:04:20] The second one is Kevin Cahill, the inaugural. Now, obviously, even when I interviewed Kevin, I did not have my own equipment. I hadn't purchased any equipment because I wasn't sure how this would go. And the equipment for podcast can be very expensive once you start getting mixers and digital recorders and things of that sort. So I actually had a friend that had podcasting equipment and so I use that for my interview with Kevin. But I really enjoyed that interview because of the stories he told about Dr. Deming, including how what happened the night that he watched the NBC White Paper. If Japan can, why can't we? And just the the storytelling there and the history of it isn't lost with me.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:05:17] Third, Ed Baker, now Ed Baker.He his interview was interesting to me. He he traveled along with Dr. Deming, with Ford. And it kind of goes through the Ford story, talks about Taylorism. He talks about the improvement methods of today.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:05:37] But the reason I probably enjoyed the Ed Baker interview is because I had to prep so much for that. Not only did I read his book, but I read about it. Baker looked for previous references and other books, but I just remember it from a lot of preparation standpoint. I read the book twice, but I think before we did the interview and there's a lot of good things in there. He'll tell basically the message that I that I think I got out of that interview was, you know, whether it's Lean or Six Sigma or TQM or any other improvement methodology that most of the people that are enjoying those methodologies are missing the system of profound knowledge.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:21] So, again, that would be appreciation for system theory and knowledge, theory, variation and psychology and and those four things that were being emphasized as opposed to just the statistical process control types of things that a lot of people focus in on, on Six Sigma and Lean. I think this is quite a.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:47] Quite a bit of this, but he also talks about in there about Jim McConville, our mattress Mac, as he's known at gallery furniture in the story of what happened there.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:58] And that was one of the Jim McIngvale is a person that has been mentioned a number of times in Dr. Deming's books as someone who changed from very sales type of attitude to understanding a system. And he's he's well known in the Houston area for a lot of things that he's done, like when they had the hurricane, how he opened his stores and just let people in during that time period and kind of not only paying it forward, but that, you know, these are it's funny you think about if people are selfish enough, they'd be altruistic as kind of the thing because you treat everybody really well. And I think that that when I think of Jim McIngvale, I think of that quote, not that he said it, but just what applies to to him. But Ed Baker talking about that story was good. Excuse me. Good for me. He also was very influential in that interview. Got me thinking about thinking and how we need to change thinking the way we think about things. And I developed this model I call the ninety five method, but it involves looking through a customer lens but looking through a thinking lens. And and Ed Baker talks quite a bit about thinking and influence the udemy training that I put it put out there based off of a lot of the things out of that interview and what kept getting deeper and deeper in understanding, thinking that was going on, mental models and things of that sort.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:08:52] The fourth interview that I really enjoyed was with Monta Akin, and Monacan is a, first of all, just a sweetheart of a person, but she shared the story. She worked at the Leander School District. I believe she's retired now.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:09] But how she had listened to things that were happening with David Langford and Sitka, Alaska, and about how education was being applying the Deming method with some of the things that David Langford was doing.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:28] And she was really the first person to really talk about education. As someone from a school district, I'd listen to the story of David Langford and had interviewed them, but just her grasping some concepts and, you know, waking up in the middle of the night while watching, you know, if Japan can, why can't we? And our interactions with David Langford all were really relevant to me. And I'm kind of a, I don't know, amateur history buff, not only about Dr. Deming, but but a number of other things and really enjoyed that history.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:10:09] And the fifth person that I really became one of my favorite episodes is with Claire Crawford Mason and Bob Mason, her husband, and just a number of things that really stand out in my mind. I go back to all five of these quite often, actually. And Claire Crawford, Mason talks about how she first met Dr. Deming and and some of the things that were happening that led up to the white paper of Japan can why can't we, which you can watch at the Deming Institute website. I think it's also on YouTube, if I remember correctly.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:10:45] But kind of the the what launched Dr. Deming back in this country, even though he was already famous over in Japan and just the history of how everything kind of degenerated into this white paper. And, you know, we didn't have a like today for some of you, we don't have a thousand.We didn't have a thousand channels back in 1980, basically ABC, NBC and CBS.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:11:15] And that was it. I mean, really that that you would listen to. So they almost had those three stations had a virtual monopoly on as far as television goes or communication goes. But the history of that is really relevant to me. I enjoyed that type of history, again, the same type of thing with mine again. And, you know, there were different quotes out of there. You listen to how Dr. Deming loved the fact that Bob Mason went to Harvard. We went to the business school and how Dr. Deming thought they were teaching the wrong things in Harvard Business School.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:11:56] And every time he would meet with Bob or see Bob, you would ask him about all the bad stuff that Harvard was teaching about business, which is not only funny, but it was interesting to me. So anyway, those are my top five.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:12:12] I didn't mean to slight anybody. I've learned so much from working with all of these or interviewing all of these different people and some of the conversations that I've had with them and certainly the post conversations that I've had with a lot of these folks about things that maybe were more relevant to me or thought were relevant to me and not necessarily relevant to the broader audience.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:12:35] But anyway, those are my top five. I will put links to those and this episode so people can can go and listen to them on their own. But that's what I wanted to cover this week. I hope this change would be a little bit different for you and learning about some other episodes and some of the things we've I don't know what the number is now of episodes that we've done, but it's a lot. So thank you for listening and we'll talk again in a month or so.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:10] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast, stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 39th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at the book, The Reckoning" and some of the implications of it.

[00:00:15]
Deming Lens - Episode 39

[00:02:53]
Deming Finds an Audience

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:15] In the 39 episode of The Deming Lens will discuss the book, The Reckoning and some of the questions that it leads us.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of The Deming Lens, and this month I wanted to talk about a book called The Reckoning. Now you can go back to an interview I did with Dick Steele, who is a board of trustees member for the Deming Institute, where he had come across the same book, The Reckoning. It was published in 1986. It was written by David Halberstam. And this book was one that really enthralled me at the age of 26 as explaining kind of what was happening in the 80s and actually prior to that from World War Two up and two up until 1986. And I was captivated by primarily because I worked for an industrial distributor and I was seeing manufacturing begin to disappear. And I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew something was going on and. When I started reading this book, it's it's Grapes of Wrath long, so it's not a short book, but if you are interested in that kind of understanding, the rise of Nissan, which was originally called Datsun, they didn't take on the family name until they started making quality products. And interesting story in and of itself. But the book would talk about the rise of Nissan and the fall of Ford during this time period and gives a great history of what was happening on a very intimate level with individuals involved and being named. I was going through my MBA program at the time. And this book really hit home with some of the things that I was studying and I thought, you know, I was studying operations and finance.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:53] And. As I read it, I got to I believe it's Chapter 19.I'm looking through the book as I look oh, excuse me, it's 17 chapters, 17 of the The Reckoning.And it says Deming finds an audience, and I didn't think much about it at the time until I started to read that the the chapter and it's started to talk about.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:03:25] W. Edwards, Deming and how he was revered in Japan and, you know, he was really famous in Japan and the Japanese were always puzzled when they come over to visit him in Washington, D.C., in the States, and he people in the United States didn't know who he was. And primarily his fame came from his knowledge of statistical quality control. And the Japanese had seen that as the as the reason for losing World War Two is that the U.S. had made quality products. And I thought, wow, why have I not heard of this guy? I'm going through an MBA program and a highly in an area with a lot of engineers that were in my MBA program that worked for a Whirlpool corporation.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:04:23] And I thought.I haven't even read his name once, and actually as I started to go back to some of my books that I was given during the course of my MBA and operations, it was a chapter we didn't cover. But there was a brief mention of Deming in there, but nothing about statistical quality control or any of those things.And.At the time, I was a sales rep for an industrial distributor, so I was going to night school to get get my MBA and one of the products that I sold was a company called MIDA Toyia. And they make measuring products. And they had come out with this thing about statistical, what we would probably know better as a statistical process control or as Dr. Wheeler likes to call it, process behavior charts was something that I saw in its infancy, at least in the U.S. being used that I had ever seen. Of course, now we know that was used during World War Two and it didn't prove that the products that were out there. And I also was listening to a video that's on YouTube about Huma Deming, who was in. Japan, and he was primarily charged with finding ways for General MacArthur to communicate to the masses right after World War Two because he had a problem, he couldn't communicate to everybody. And so Homer Deming went in and helped set up radios and radio stations and receivers so that people could have them in their home and hear what was kind of happening in their in their country. And so Homer Sarasohn was a big part of that. And he was a 29 year old guy who had worked on radars during the course of the war.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:31] But I found it very fascinating that I had never heard of this W. Edwards Deming. So I immediately went out to all of my professors and said, who is this guy? And I finally found a professor that had heard of him but didn't really know much about the work that was being done by Dr.Deming. And so that became the thesis for my or the subject of my thesis for my MBA program. And so I wrote about W. Edwards Deming and his focus on quality and that quality need to precede profit. And I have no idea where that paper is anymore. But regardless, it was something that captivated me. And I started to the very initial stages of understanding, statistical process, control and how to use it and how it could be used to benefit in improving the quality of products and services. And so it was became a lifelong obsession with me. And every once in a while, I go back and I read the reckoning and not necessarily all the pages, sometimes I do. The last time I read it, probably cover to cover was in 2000 seven, 2008, when the banking crisis started. And because there you go. There's another reckoning now. The things I'm going to say here are not they're not to be political. They are to be. What I see happening today is going to be something far worse than what we experienced in 2008 in that in the United States. Anyway, we're running up massive amounts of debt in the U.S. and inflation is starting to show, but not in necessarily ways that we're feeling it at the moment.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:08:36] The dollar has dropped. Some people are predicting a precipitous drop in the dollar, just like real estate fell during the banking crisis in 2008. I think we're on the verge, in my opinion, from the things that I've read of another reckoning. And the reckoning that's going to happen this time is going to be very financially devastating. The twenty seven trillion dollars in debt that the United States has, there's going to be a reckoning. And I think that some of the things, because we didn't listen to some of the things Dr. Deming talked about, which would have avoided the 2008 banking crisis, because, Dr. Drew, I mean, we talk about, you know, people are worried about bad service from a teller. He said the thing that's going to could ruin a bank are loans. And guess what ruined the banks in 2008 was the bad loans that they had written. We have a credit crisis here not only as a government in the United States, but even on the individual level. Well, we just recently passed a trillion dollar and consumer debt. So we have an issue that is manifesting itself here in the states. And there there's going to be another reckoning for the same reasons that Dr. Deming recognized back in the 80s as manufacturing started to fall apart. Now, we seem to not learn the same lessons each time we go through these things. So I'm hopeful that with all the things that are going on and the fact, you know, with the pandemic, with foreign relations and everything else, that we come to an understanding, there are certain things that need to be manufactured locally.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:10:34] And by virtue of that, we're going to take a different attitude on how we go about things. Now, I mentioned in a previous episode, I think a couple of episodes ago, I talked about how. You know, even our government is starting to recognize that captains of industry are short term thinkers and can't think to the long term because they're looking to do something for their an individual greater good as opposed to a broader system, greater good. And as I read The Reckoning, there was an excerpt from it that I think kind of hit home with me. And it says nothing of Paul Deming more than the idea of the interchangeable manager, what is the motivation and purpose of men like this? He would say with contempt, do they even know what they do anymore? What do they produce? All they knew about was numbers, not product. All they thought about was maximum profit, not the excellence of profit. Or product, the numbers, of course, he added, always lied, they know all the visible numbers, but the visible numbers tell them so little they know nothing of the invisible numbers. Who can put a price on a satisfied customer and who can figure out the cost of a dissatisfied customer? One of Deming's American disciples, Ron Moen, who has been interviewed on the Deming Institute podcast.

[00:12:14] Said it was as if Deming saw work as a kind of Zen experience, what he is really asking Mon and pointed out is what is the purpose of life and what is the purpose of work? Why are you doing this? Who truly benefits from what you do other than yourself? Those are not questions that many people in American business want to answer anymore. And so here we are. And I think these are the same questions that as we look to the future, no matter what happens, we're in an interesting thing. And I think this is a precursor to a certain reckoning, again, in the United States as these things cycle through. So I thought I would leave you with those questions this month to reflect on and how we might be able to do a greater good other than a greater good for ourselves.

[00:13:15] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast, stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 38th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at short-term thinking.

SHOW NOTES

[00:00:15] Deming Lens #38 - Short-Term Thinking
[00:00:56] Attorney General Barr on American Executives
[00:04:15] Dr. Deming's Take on Short-Term Thinking

[00:09:56] We Need New Thinking in Executives

TRANSCRIPT

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:15] This is the Thirty-eighth Episode of the Deming Lens. Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of The Deming Lens. And over the past month, I have been listening to some of the political things that have been going on, and they have no intention of making the Deming lens a political lens by any stretch. But there was something there was an interview with Attorney General William Barr.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:56] Now, no matter what your political affiliation, William Barr got on and he was talking about China and way, which they're putting in 5G networks all over the world, being helped by the Chinese Communist Party or the CCP.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:19] And a lot of this is being subsidized because at least the belief of this administration is, is that China will use this because they fund of the wall way or help fund Wall Way, give insight and to secrets and intellectual property and things of that sort all over the world.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:47] And what I thought was really interesting was some of the things that William Barr said.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:56] I've never heard anyone in government quite put it this way. I've heard about all the greed and stuff that are in corporations. You hear that talk quite a bit. But he was the first person that said, you know, that U.S. businesses are helping China in the race for economic and technological dominance by putting their earnings, their their organizational or company earnings above national interest. And that really just struck me. I've never heard a government official really talk in those terms before. There was the end in quotes, basically. Attorney General Barr said they're willing, ultimately, many of them meaning these companies, to sacrifice the long term viability of their companies for short term profit so that they can get their stock options to move to the golf resort.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:55] Now, that's a direct quote from William Barr in an Republican administration, which, like I said, it really struck me as something very different. And I think there's some frustration where there was expectation that a lot of the companies in the U.S. when they got the tax cuts, would be moving companies back. They'd be investing in things in their own company. But instead, they most of them have forgone dividends. But they've done a lot of stock buybacks, which artificially raises the price of stocks. And, you know, Barr's mantra was that these executives are not taking the long term view and then the national view of maintaining the American strength.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:03:48] So now there's all types of talk about maybe the U.S. is going to invest in Nokia, which is in Finland or Sweden's Ericsson or a combination of the both of the two, in order to compete against war way so that countries will have access to the 5G network.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:04:15] That from a basically free country. So I immediately when you hear these things, the first thing that hits you is, OK. This is Dr. Deming talking all over again about short term profits. And I talked about this a little bit and the stock buybacks and things like that. An episode in the Deming Lens, Episode 35. So you can go back and you can listen to that particular episode. But but when I was looking through for the short term profits, I found something that Dr. Deming said that that fit perfectly. So I just want to this is from out of the crisis. It. He says short term profits are not a reliable indicator of performance of management. Anybody can pay dividends by deferring maintenance, cutting out research or acquiring another company. And here, I might add, you know, doing Stipe's stock buybacks and options to put more money in executives pockets. But it goes on to say dividends and paper profits, the yardstick by which managers of money and heads of. These are judges to make no contribution to material living for people anywhere, nor do they improve the competitive position of a company or of an American industry. Paper profits do not make bread. Improvement of quality and productivity. Do they make a contribution to better material living for all people here and everywhere? And then I'll just finish this.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:05:57] This particular section that Dr. Deming goes on to say, people that depend on dividends live on to live on should be concern, not merely with the size of the dividend and today, but also with the question of whether there will be dividends three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. Minute management has the obligation to protect investment. Wow. And you Attorney General Barr's position is we're not being competitive with wall away because American management has to short term thinking. And then you wonder kind of what's changed in the United States since Dr. Deming observed these things back in the early 80s. Now, we know that the longevity of companies, let's say in the S&P 500 has narrowed that itch. It's shortened over the years. Yeah, a thirty three year average. Tenure of companies in the S&P 500 1964 narrowed to twenty four years in 2016 and is forecast to shrink to 12 years in 2027. Now, there's a couple different ways to look at this. I mean, yes, we have a rapidly changing environment where organizations are being disrupted or whole industries are being disrupted because of technology and the Internet.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:07:35] These are things that, you know, will continue to happen.But what hits me in the face is that none of these organizations are looking really to the long term when they're doing things like corporate stock buybacks. Dr. Deming talked about dividends and as I mentioned in Episode 35, that that's kind of been replaced by these stock options and artificially pumping up the stock price through the stock buybacks by making fewer stock, few fewer and fewer number of stocks available in the market. So we've got this environment going on and we're not reinvesting. I spoke to an executive recently and she told me that we're talking about making no change. And this was in the in the financial arena. And she told me that, well, our executives are getting close to retirement. And really what they're about as is getting as much money out of this financial institution than really trying to make significant change. You know that this is something like what I'm talking about and making huge transformation in an organization wouldn't fly because its executives just wouldn't be interested. And they're looking for the shortcuts to get their stock options higher and their bonuses higher and things of that sort. And I got to tell you, I I see this a lot and have seen it a lot in organizations over the years, especially as a consultant, because people are saying, well, what can you cut out of my organization? But there is a change going on. And I don't want to be completely pessimistic about what's going on in the environment today. I have all sorts of issues with plenty holes and some of the things that they think. But one of the things that they are about is the greater good. Now, I think sometimes that's misguided. But at the same time, they seem to be looking to not just stuff their own pockets.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:56] Now, a lot of them haven't risen necessarily to positions where they can make a lot of money and pocket the pocket themselves. And we'll be interesting to see. Do they follow the same path of many of the boomers that preceded them in executive positions and start to take that? But but I. I don't think so. I think there's enough going on our society about inequities that things will change for the better. And we'll start trying to do things that are for the greater good. And just a for instance, no matter what you think of Mark Cuban, I'm a huge shark tank fan. It's just it's good entertainment. But, you know, he's he has talked about, you know, we need to find ways to accumulate wealth. If we're going to give stop stock options to executives, maybe we should be giving them to employees. But I think these are that this is the type of thinking that is going to be need to be considered or the new theories that we need come up with the find ways to help get people out of poverty. You know, a lot of people talk about rebuilding the middle class, but there's inefficiencies in the way that we operate today when things go through these large institutions for things like Medicaid and food stamps and things of that sort. They have to go through these huge machines in government to dole out things that people need in order to be able to live. And that, to me, is is completely ineffective. And an inefficient way of doing it is putting through these big machines that have basically provision services at exorbitant rates. It's very expensive to send people back through the government. So these are. So this is some of the thinking, that I think we're going to need to tackle as we move forward.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:12:11] And you know, Dr. Deming, I think he nailed it back in the 80s. And we seem to be we seem to cycle through this to a certain degree. I think this great disparity that we have between, you know, what an executive salary is and an employee salary is, there's been a lot of light shined on it in the past where you thought maybe there would be some things I would be going. We've talked about women and equality of pay, minorities in pay. But I think as we start to recognize that some of the greed that has penetrated our system makes it something that that we're going to need to come up with new theories.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:01] And I think Dr. Deming had nailed it right from the beginning that we have to look much bigger at larger systems.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:09] Are we maximizing the value of our society as opposed to just our organization or our individual pocketbook? So that's what I wanted to talk about this week or this month on the Deming lens and just gives us something to think about, about how we want to run our organizations. I know one of the things that I'm doing, I'm building executive education program that has a lot of this in it. Not not to browbeat executives into to do something they don't want to do, but in essence, to make them aware of what their thinking is. And, you know, how does this how how does this play into the greater good of society and how can we make it better?

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:56] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast, stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 37th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he revisits intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

[00:00:15]
Deming Lens - Episode 37

[00:00:27]
Episode 37 - Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

[00:02:09]
Dr. Adam Grant Research on Fundraising

[00:07:10]
Revisiting the Lasting Impact of Taylorism

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:15] In the thirty seventh edition of The Demming Lens, I'll discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:27] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt. Host of the Deming Institute podcast. And in this Deming lens, I was. Doing some research for my Mind Your Noodles podcast. And I really think this is applies to the Deming community, so I wanted to share some things that I found was doing some research. I think it really applies. Back in the 1980s, Deming users groups were familiar with Alfie Cohn and his two important works published Punished by Rewards and No Contest. The Case Against Competition. And Dr. Deming would often cite Alfie's work during his seminars and videos and things of that sort. But in Punch by Rewards, Alfie Cohn talked quite a bit as Dr. Deming about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and the intrinsic motivation was found to be by far the better motivator. And I think fundamentally, all of us kind of understand that, especially being in the Demming community, where if you're new, I think you will find if you read the two books by Alfie Cohn and Dr Deming's works that or videos that you'll find the same thing. But I did come across some relatively new studies that help shed light on this intrinsic over extrinsic motivation. And they are by a pretty well-known author, which is Dr.

[00:02:09] Adam Grant. He's written many books, originals and a number of different books that are relevant with with interesting research and studies. And in his studies, he he's found that when a worker is connected somehow to the customer, that they can see the impact on a customer, that it provides them with some intrinsic motivation. But the study that really got my attention was this one that was with a fund raising company that he worked with and they were having turnover of raisers. If you could imagine, that would be a pretty tough job of about 400 percent every year. So basically, every quarter would have turnover of a completely new staff of people and. You know, basically, the job was that they were to call alumni of a university to solicit funds, donations for scholarships, and so with this turnover amount, he went to different. Really thousands of executives and ask him what they would do. And not surprisingly, most of them thought that the answer would be no. Offering some type of incentive, you know, increased pay rewards, things of that sort. All extrinsic types of motivators.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:03:51] But from previous research, Grant theorized having a student share with the fundraiser raisers how the scholarship would make a different error, had made a difference in their lives, would help improve motivation. And it did. And again, if you had a lot of Alphie cone stuff, you're probably not too surprised. Or you may be surprised if you're new to the to the Demming community. But what they what he found was there was an increase of about a hundred, 42 percent in weekly time spent on the phone doing the fund fundraiser. And there was an increase of 400 percent. And the amount that was raised weekly went from 400 dollars to greater than to that two thousand dollars every week. So this idea of intrinsic motivation being more important than extrinsic motivation still isn't in the minds of executives, of people that are actually pulling the strings. And, you know, if we take ourselves back to the Taylor Ristic ideas from Frederick Taylor in the early nineteen hundreds. This idea of, boy, if we, you know, went to Schmitt and the worker carrying pig iron I believe was, was, was the, was the job and he wanted to produce more of this than he would just offer incentives, extrinsic types of incentives in order to get more. And this think he gets perpetuated despite every bit of evidence that shows that intrinsic motivation is is far greater. And IMPAC in fact, one study that I found said that nine in 10 workers would be willing to to be paid less if they did meaningful work. You know, from their perspective and we see we still aren't tapping into this into with organizations, despite Dr. Deming's pleas, Offie KONE's, please, all of the research that's being done. And it's this being rooted back in this Taylor Ristic type of thinking that perpetuates what's going on here.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:30] Well, I can say the U.S., because we seem to be the ones really stuck in this.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:34] But this is this is global, too, that the extrinsic rewards are the greater motivator or the prime motivator over intrinsic rewards. And obviously, from Dr. Grant study, we found that he found that. That that this is still the thinking of executives, if we're going to decrease turnover, what's offer more rewards? And it was something so simple as having a student come and share what they're doing now.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:07:10] My experience in working with organizations has been that because of the functional separation of work and this really started at least and from what I've read from Frederick Taylor, you know, separating out the pieces that the work, nobody can see the impact. It's not like the blacksmith anymore that would take the order was the CEO, in essence, would take the order, do the work and then get feedback from the customer. We don't have that type of arrangement in many organizations anymore, and therefore we're disconnected from the customer. So if you can imagine when you call into a contact center, how many things are resolved at the contact center level? Some are. But some of the deeper problems or the delivery of the service or the product, we never really know. You you would never really know in a contact center whether the service was good or bad. And it's one of the things that drives me absolutely bonkers is, you know, getting the message at the beginning of a call into a customer service area. And they say, well, hold on. And we're going to take a survey of basically how the contact center agent dead. And you know how I mean, where was the person? Nice. I mean, what what what am I rating? I'm not really rating, nor can they see how things perform. So I rarely do the surveys that are on there unless I'm angry about something. To be honest with you. Or they were able to resolve the problem and to my satisfaction.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:08:59] But that doesn't happen. Like I said, it doesn't happen very often in a in a contact center because of the separation of work, nor do they see.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:07] So from if you could imagine sitting in contacts in here all day and nine out of 10 of your calls are things that you can't resolve and you never know the outcome. How satisfying can it be, how meaningful work cannot be. And so there's opportunities here to develop meaningful work. But I wanted to share this these studies because real I thought this what were are these studies were important things to think about as we talk in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:45] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Demming dot org.

In our 36th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at the Neuroscience and the System of Profound Knowledge.

[00:00:29]
Deming Institute Podcast - Episode 36

[00:02:19]
The Triune Brain

[00:04:35]
System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK)

[00:10:07]
The Challenge of Educating on  the SoPK

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:14] In the thirty six edition of The Deming Lens, we'll take a look at neuroscience and the work of W. Edwards Deming.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:29] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt Host. Deming Institute podcast in this week. I want to talk about neuroscience and Deming. I do a podcast separate from the in the Deming Institute that looks at neuroscience and how we might be able to learn from it in business. And it's it's been a very interesting journey for me.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:54] And it started all because a lot of the books I was reading probably three, four years ago had to do with what was called the try and brain. Now, I didn't even know it was called that at the time, as though the word comes from Paul McLean, who came up with the breakdown of your brain in two, three parts.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:20] And just to simplify it, it's a reptilian brain, a million brain and the human brain.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:01:28] And that those are the three parts and the reptile brain is more the fight or flight type of thing that we're. Yeah, that was the beginning part of our brain. And then there's this outer layer. If he could visualize the mammalian brain, which is the limbic system, our emotion and our behavior, and then this third component that advanced later, basically the human brain as we know it now, it's part of the neocortex, which is where we have reason and the ability to do the things that humans can do that no other species can do. But as I got into it, I started talking to neuroscience. One thing started to become very evident, and that is that most neuroscientists don't.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:19] I believe that the brain is three separate parts and.That there may be a component of your brain that may be involved in emotion or reason or whatever, but it was the interconnectedness of the brain that really caught me by surprise. And I had never really thought about it. So much had been written about these three parts and how we react as reptiles.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:50] When certain things happen, them and so forth. And it made sense and it was easy to grasp. And I think that's one of the reasons why people perpetuate this merfolk. I'm sure it is at this point. But what's but it struck me that this interconnectedness was just like a system. And when we talk in terms of Dr. Deming's system of profound knowledge, it got me thinking about how difficult it is to come up with a way for people to learn something that is not the way that we normally learn things. We learn about math. We learn about English. We learn about history. We learn about a whole series of different components. And it's just the way that humans make sense of the world as we move forward. And it's easy to explain. In mere fact, when neuroscientists that I had on my podcast talked about the fact that, you know, if it's if it helps people understand it's OK to overgeneralize. And that's what people have done by perpetuating this try and brain fallacy. But it does make it very difficult since we don't learn systems. We learn parts that we enable to put those parts into a whole becomes even more difficult. And we see this in the education systems, even at advanced levels. You know, we have psychology and a system, profound knowledge, and we have theory of variation. We got theory and knowledge.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:04:35] We've got appreciation for a system and that all four of these things in her act, and it's just foreign when you talk to people because they want to learn one piece. And that just isn't the way that our brain is made. Because of its interconnectedness. And it's very difficult for us to grasp the system, profound knowledge that these four components work together to create the system. And yet nature does not look at things the way that humans have broken it down. It doesn't see math or science or English or French or any other things, that these are just ways that humans have adapted to be able to communicate with each other. And a lot of the ways we've had to adapt include the ability to overgeneralize. And I've been reflecting, you know, I think some people within the Deming community think that think of it almost as a red badge of courage or something. The fact that there is no true method associated with the Deming philosophy, you kind of have to understand that the each of these four components in light of each other and there's no way to really separate them out because they are so interconnected. And so got me thinking, and especially as I've started to build my own model or my own method for implementing the Deming philosophy, I sat back and said, you know, this does.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:17] This is a challenge. I mean, it won't be perfect. There are some things I've learned over the years about implementing the Deming philosophy and organizations, some of work better than others. But the more that I have learned about how interconnected these things are and how foreign Demings philosophy is, the way that people think that it seems like a worthy mission to be able to go out and try and figure out a way to communicate it in a way in which people can grasp. I don't think it just separating ourselves in the Deming community as people who are deeper thinkers or, you know, more robust in our education of. W. Edwards Deming is going to advance the cause. And I think now is a truly a pivotal time in our history, especially as we talk in terms of bringing me a lot of manufacturing back overseas into the United States. And we're going to have. Potentially another opportunity to. And I talked about this last week or last month a little bit about the situation that we have these barriers with the way that we're financially oriented and short term thinking oriented, and we have dividends and stock buybacks and all things that will be barriers to organizations to be able to compete in something like manufacturing. But I do find it interesting that, you know, with all the talk of A.I. and automation, that why can't it be done here and in domestic countries and within their own region, you know, not just the United States, but, you know, with a shortage of mass and ventilators as we go through the corona virus, having things more locally located seems to make a lot of sense to me. So I think another opportunity may be coming from the manufacturing room. And it can't be the old formula that we've heard about from traditional management.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:08:40] And that is we've got to get more productivity and get things out at a higher rate. And we're learning about the quality problems associated with some of the PPK from foreign countries. So we're going to have to if we're going to compete in this area we're at to get up on Azi, we're going to have to get up on automation and figure out ways to use that. Now, I'm come from the philosophy of. Looking at technology, I remember technology, you know, when we had information technology and all the computers every now and everything really was going to was saying, jeez, in all the jobs are gonna go away because we have information technology now. Well, let's see if we can safely say that infer information technology has actually grown the employment of countries rather than diminished it over a particular period of time. So these are some of the things that that I see. And being able to have some method associated with the Deming philosophy to me makes a lot of sense, although very difficult to accomplish that. I'll test, too, because there are so many things when you look through that particular Deming lens where you're seeing a lot of the interconnectedness between things.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:10:07] But we need to start to be able to connect the dots to reach those that are of the try and brain trap type of mindset where they've overgeneralize things to the point where maybe it's it's even wrong. If we're looking at it from a Deming lens standpoint. So being able to communicate those things and breaking it out, maybe using the components of training or try and brain, but with a asterisk next next to it. That basically says, hey, you know, these things are all interconnected. We don't we aren't just emotional because of the limbic system. We're emotional because the limbic system is involved, but so are multiple other parts of the brain. And sometimes the limbic system isn't even involved at all, which is bizarre to me. But these are some of the thing, things that you learn and that what makes the Deming philosophy so interesting to me is the fact that this interconnectedness between things perpetuates actually the way that things actually are in the natural world.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:11:19] And so we're going to have to be able to take that and maybe look, relook at things. And especially in the education system. If you look at colleges and universities, you know, everything is still separated in two pieces. And I think one of the interesting parts to me about Dr. Deming was that he reached across multiple disciplines to be able to come up with his philosophy. He had to learn something a little bit about Pista Walji. He had to learn a little bit about psychology. I suspect he probably would be at this point with advancements in neuroscience looking into that. But I don't know. But I bet just because he's such a lifelong learner, I have to believe that he would be here, that he would have that he knew about systems thinking and started to put that together. And I think the cross almost crossed a department type of thinking or the interconnectedness of the system type of thinking is really what what sets it apart and allows it to leap.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:12:37] So I challenge people to be able to go out there and think in terms of the Deming philosophy and ways to explain it that don't over over simplify or watered down the message of what it was that he is was trying to teach and still build. I'm a strong believer that we need to continue to advance that thinking and looking at cross disciplines that can help shed light on Dr. Demings philosophy and be the lifelong learners that he challenged us to be.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:14] So that was it for this this month. I wanted to go through it just a little.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:20] It was such a moment for me when you started to see that the brain was as interconnected as the Dr. Deming system of profound knowledge, that that there are so many things that make up our thoughts and the way that we react and do things. And it's not just one part of our brain. And so it isn't one part. And it really sent me back to systems thinking that we're greater than the sum of our parts.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:54] And just optimizing the parts within an organization will not achieve what we need to do and that we have to understand what the connections are and we will have to continue to overgeneralize them in order to communicate them. But we've got to be careful not to water down the message of what a system is and what Dr. Deming was talking about in his system of profound knowledge.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:14:24] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast, stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 35th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at the Coronavirus crisis, past crises, and where we go from here.

[00:00:14]
Deming Lens #35

[00:00:28]
Coronavirus and China

[00:03:05]
History of Crisis'

[00:11:04]
Stock Buybacks - The Replacement for Dividends in Short-Term Thinking

[00:14:50]
Manage Like Its the Early 1900s?

[00:17:27]
Look to the Future

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:14] In the thirty-fifth episode of the Deming Lens, I'll discuss Coronavirus and bringing manufacturing back, some history on manufacturing crises, and a look to the future.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast. This month, I'd like to talk about what everybody's talking about right now, which is the current coronavirus crisis. And you know, as I start to see some of the reports that are coming in, you know, everybody's trying to do their particular part, but -  the light has really been shined on US manufacturing or the lack thereof. So there's a new term now in our lexicon called PPE - personal protective equipment. And pharmaceuticals that are made in China. And it started getting me to reflect on some of the previous crises, so I'm going to walk through that a little bit later in the podcast. But talking about what's happening today, that China is rejecting sending some products and services and even Europe has been rejecting some Chinese products because of poor quality in the form of the products of PPE and some testing equipment. And so now there's a lot of talk about bringing some of the manufacturing back to the US. That just makes sense. Now, this is something I've advocated for many years. I wrote a LinkedIn article four years ago that I re-posted under my profile about the fact that we have some people that - some countries that we aren't necessarily completely friendly with or their governments are run differently between a communist country and a democratic country.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:02:27] And, you know, now we have things like the Hong Kong riots and things of that sort. And so having manufacturing here, in the article I wrote about having manufacturing in the US and especially that it doesn't make sense to be outsourcing military equipment, parts, and things of that sort to countries that may be unfriendly to us. So anyway, this crisis has has shined a light on China. And they're making some of the products, especially this PPE in the pharmaceuticals.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:03:05] So like I said, I started reflecting on some of the crises that we've been through. And originally, Dr. Deming talked about him going in 1950 - for those who aren't familiar with with W. Edwards Deming and his work - going to Japan in 1950, talking to leaders of Japan industrial arena that owned 80 percent of the capital or represented 80 percent of the capital of Japan at that time. And starting him down a path of qualilty why the US had used a lot of the techniques that W. Edwards Deming took to Japan, discarded them because 50 percent of the products were made after World War II in the US and it's well below that now - less than half. But because we were able to produce things in the US rapidly just to fill the demand, quality went out the window.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:04:19] And Dr. Deming told the Japanese that if they followed his teachings, that they would have countries the world over screaming for protection in five years. And in his words, they did it in four. So we've set sets up the scenario between 1950 and, say, 1969, which Dr. Deming says was the height of US manufacturing, that it was never any higher after that particular time period. But during that time period, Japan was improving the quality of their products that they were making. And with the help of their goods, the government and even the help of the United States in allowing those products to come over to Japan. But what happened was, is this started a steady decline in manufacturing. And in the 1970s, we saw a lot of the automobile manufacturers on the ropes of going into bankruptcy. We had Chrysler, but a lot of them because of the quality of the products and also the foresight of many of the Japanese manufacturers to make smaller cars when the whole oil embargo manifests itself during the 1970s. Then when we went to the 1980s, we, in essence, started down a path. And this is when I became active in working with an industrial distributor in the Indianapolis area.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:06:10] And I started as a sales rep in Evansville, Indiana. And in the early eighties, I remember calling on a number of manufacturers that were having problems competing. And there was always talk about shut downs and layoffs and things of that sort. But there was still a lot of manufacturing going on in the middle of the 80s. But during that time period, from the time I graduated from school in the early 80s until I got my MBA in the mid 80s, and then in the late 80s, you saw a steady decline in the number of manufacturers that were in the United States. And, you know, I saw the Zenith Cabinet plant, for instance, in Evansville, Indiana, close down during the time period that I was in Evansville. But there was a lot of talk about different companies being shut down because of Japan. And I there was a lot of talk also about the fact that the Japanese had lower prices and this, that, and the other. And so it's pretty well documented that the Japanese were able to not only increase productivity, but they did it through having quality products that they were making and not just how many we could make, which was the US focus, but how well we made them actually wound up increasing the productivity even faster.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:07:43] So we had a lot of things going on. We had Japanese then increasing their productivity. As I just mentioned, we had Paul Volcker, who the Federal Reserve who was raising interest rates in the 1980s. And in 1982, an interesting little thing happened. It was called stock buybacks. Now, if you're familiar with Dr. Deming, his work Out of The Crisis or The New Economics, he talks a lot about dividends. But what hasn't been talked about too much that I know of any way in the Deming community are stock, are the damage of these stock buybacks. And let me just talk about what these are. These are companies buying stock back from the marketplace. And it's really almost from my perspective and there's a a doctor, Lozano Alnwick, that writes quite a bit about this from the University of Massachusetts. And I'll put a link to some of the articles and some of the videos that he has out there about how you can manipulate your stock price by doing these stock buybacks. So this became something that you were allowed to do in 1980, too. And actually, there were rules put in that protected it. Now, if you can imagine, if you know, you're going to do as an executive, if you know you're going to be doing a stock buyback for your company because it's a manipulative thing to do if you have knowledge of it can be considered insider trading, at least from my perspective.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:09:21] Now, you may have a different view on it, but you have the opportunity to know when you're going to do it and, you know, be able to manipulate the price. And whereas Dr. Deming talked a lot about in Out of The Crisis and The New Economics. Stock dividends, these buybacks have the same type of damage associated with them, because if you can manipulate the stock price and you are getting stock options that are given to executives, this just reinforces the short-term thinking that Dr. Deming railed against in both of his books, which is, you know, dividends, dividends, dividends. Well, just because we've changed the name or added another tool that does the same damaging thing in the form of stock buybacks, it's not helpful. And what does it do? Well, it does a couple of things that stand out that are damaging to organizations and that reinforces the short-term thinking. One of the things that it does is it compromises your liquidity. So if there's an economic downturn like we have now, you're as liquid with stock as you would be with having no cash on hand or assets that are more readily liquid.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:10:54] The other thing that it does is it prevents the reinvestment, the need and organizations to innovate and invest in products and even people.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:11:04] So these are some of the damaging things associated with what happened when they allowed these stock buybacks to happen in 1982. In the 1990s, in fact, we started to see stock options, more stock options to executives, which then promoted even more of the short-term thinking when Dr. Deming is talking about dividends. So we can almost say that nowadays dividends are almost being replaced by these buybacks, so that with these executives getting bonuses based on the stock price, that they're looking for short-term things to be able to prop up the price and being able to manipulate stock buybacks as a great way to continue this short-term thinking. So in the 2000s, what happened? Beginning some of the crisis that we're seeing today around us, manufacturing's of PPE and pharmaceuticals, was China was brought into the World Trade Organization in December of 2001. And this accelerated the decline in US manufacturing jobs because just like everything else, when you're looking to cut prices and look for cheaper labor in other countries, this is everything's been moved out. And there are a number of people actually in Congress today that helped facilitate moving some of these things to China and other countries. That made things more difficult for us because they didn't have the foresight to look about what type of manufacturing was needed in in the US. So, in the 2010s, we had the 2017 tax cuts where we basically had US companies with the expectation when they built this thing is that if we lowered the corporate tax rate that people would then be investing and bringing back manufacturing in the US. But what did a lot of companies do instead, is they use the reduction to do the buybacks, these stock buybacks within their organization. Now, some of these are debt funded. And again, this gets back to the liquidity of the organization because people are just trying to look for ways to increase their stock price, to increase their options and so forth.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:47] And this is where from my perspective. capitalism really gets a bad name.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:13:55] So rather than investing or reinvesting profits into the organization, we're doing financial manipulation and things that are damaging to long-term viability of organizations. Which leads us back to our current situation. I foresee that manufacturing will be coming back to the US. I think there's a lot of support not only in Congress, but with US citizens, that they see that it's going to make sense to maybe have to pay a little bit more for. Pharmaceuticals or masks, so that when the time comes when we need it, that we have it available and at the quality that we need, which leads us back to W. Edwards Deming.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:14:50] So we've been mired for over a century now in management thinking that has prevailed and still prevails today.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:15:02] From the industrial revolution and the thinking of Frederick Winslow Taylor now again, I always say this, that Taylor was a rock star in his time, advanced the thinking on functional separation of work, the bypass reward, similar to some of the things that were implemented at the Ford plant by Henry Ford.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:15:26] All those types of things were great advances in 1910. So hopefully we've advanced our thinking since then. But what I see over all, I see signs of hope and I see signs of despair when I look to the future. And from a despair state standpoint, I still see a lot of the same short-term thinking when we have stock buybacks and focus on dividends. Just because you changed the tool from dividends, that stock buybacks, you're still in a mode as an executive or a manager of thinking very short term. And most of what Dr. Deming talks about is to get us to think long term and also think in terms of quality. So these are things that are going to need to adjust themselves as we move forward. And I can't think of a better place to start than with a foundation built off of the Deming Philosophy still to this day, only because we still have it. We still haven't adopted it whole heartedly. And there will be something that follows the Deming Philosophy. But until we move from Taylor to Deming first, it's gonna be hard to get that next thing, whatever it might be.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:17:04] As far as signs of hope, I do see some good things that are happening and I see CEOs taking no salary. I see a movement with all or some of the thinking that goes with millennials, especially as a boomer.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:17:27] You look at some of stuff and shake your head. But there's a lot of things that they have shined a light on that we need to pay attention to. And that is capitalism in its current form. And the way that management plays that out in organizations is not helping our country. It is not helping humanity, for that matter. And that we need to rethink what we're doing. And I'm seeing performance appraisals go away. I see people re-looking at things like rewards and incentives and things of that sort. But they're still way more companies that are still doing old thinking from the early 1900s. So those things are going on. Now I heard an interesting thing, and I've been a proponent of this actually for a while before even he said it. But Mark Cuban was on the other day and he was talking about, you know, in order to rebuild the middle class, one of the things that needs to happen is if we've got to stop stock options for executives, then you should be doing the same percentage of stock options for the workers, and that will help build the middle class. Plus give workers not only something to look forward tp every day because they're a part owner of a company, but it will get workers out of this paycheck to paycheck mode. And, you know, all of these things they think are positive types of feedback that we're getting and new theories that people are coming up with of how we can make this run better for everyone. And this is very Deming from my perspective, that we're trying to shift the whole curve and not just our personal curve. That's it for this Deming Lens. Hope you enjoyed it. It got me thinking that maybe some of these Deming Lenses should be more like this, talking about current events.

Tripp Babbitt: [00:19:46] Thank you for listening to The Deming Institute Podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs, and other activities at deming.org.

In our 34th "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at joy in learning with a discussion on grades in schools.

[00:00:14]
Deming Lens #34 - Joy in Learning?

[00:01:47]
The Deming Players in Education

[00:03:32]
Wisconsin School Replaces Grades

[00:04:29]
Dr. Deming on Education

[00:07:25]
Experimentation Leading to Improvement is Needed

[00:09:08]
Andrea Gabor - Special Needs School

[00:09:55]
13% Don't Graduate from High School

[00:11:07]
Artificial Scarcity

[00:13:17]
Alfie Kohn on Grades

Tripp: [00:00:14] In the thirty fourth episode of the Deming Lens, we'll take a look at Dr. Demings views on joy in learning specifically around grades.

Tripp: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast in this Deming lens.

Tripp: [00:00:34] I have been listening to the television and reading some things about education and it really brought me back to Joy in learning and I apologize ahead of time. This is going to be some random thoughts. I often do that just to provoke conversation amongst people within the Deming community about maybe what should be going on with education. We've had in the Deming community, a lot of people speak about education. Chief among them is David Langford and I've interviewed David a few times. If you go to podcasts, Dot Deming, Dot, Oregon, you do a search on David Langford. You can listen to some of those interviews. And also, I've had a few conversation with Andrea Gábor, who wrote a book about Dr. Deming, who is a and she is a Deming advocate, but she writes quite a bit about education. Another person heavily involved from the Deming community is Alfie Cohn, who's written many, many books. And I've interviewed Alfie on the podcast also.

Tripp: [00:01:47] And all of these people. Alfie, I almost look at as philosopher slash educator about education in and of itself. David Langford's in kind of the front lines associated with the education system. And Andrea writes quite a bit for Harper's and Bloomberg in a number of other mediums that she communicates through. And if you get a chance, read some of her stuff. She's a very prolific writer. No one but two. She's heavily and deeply involved and tracking history of things like charter schools and government run schools and things of that sort, which is a lot of controversy.

Tripp: [00:02:42] But what got me started on this education thing this week was I saw the interview on one of the networks about a Wisconsin school system that had eliminated grades.And it just kind of set my mind to the thinking, you know.

Tripp: [00:03:07] How long have we been at this? Within the Deming community about trying to change the education system, we're certainly not the only ones trying to influence that. And these. This interview was a basically instead of having grades, they had something else. And I will go into the detail of that, because I don't think it's that significant.

Tripp: [00:03:32] But you can look into the Wisconsin school system without grades and it kind of replaced it more with adeno something more.Well, let me just kind of break down what they what they wrote. It's the they have exceeding meeting, developing and emerging students. And the article doesn't go into enough depth.

Tripp: [00:03:58] So I'm not really even get a link to it. As far as what's the result of this system, it was more of a attack on them eliminating grades. And I'm not sure that replacing it with what they have is has created any new results for it.

Tripp: [00:04:16] But then I started to go back to my Deming.Books and. It took me back to the basics.

Tripp: [00:04:29] You know, Dr. Deming wrote in the New Economics about a system of schools and he writes a system of schools, public schools, private schools, Peru for all schools, trade schools, universities, for example, is not merely pupils, teachers, school boards, boards of regents and parents working separately to achieve their own aims. It should be instead a system in which these groups work together to achieve the aims that the community has for the school growth and development of children and preparation for them to contribute to the prosperity of society. And Dr. Deming goes on to write, It should be a system of education which pupils from toddlers on up through the university take a joy in learning free from fear of grades and gold stars. And which teachers take joy in their work. Free from fear and ranking. It should be a system that recognizes differences between pupils. And differences between teachers. Such a system of schools would be destroyed if some group of schools decided to band together to lobby for their own special interest. They, together with all the schools, would be in time, would in time be losers.

Tripp: [00:05:51] And, you know, I think the takeaway for me from the New Economics from this is the joy in learning piece and how we've built these schools around the grading system.

Tripp: [00:06:06] It's so it it takes over the thinking of really everyone in that system. And Dr. Deming obviously railed against grades, but you look at each of the stakeholders in it.

Tripp: [00:06:21] You know, pupils focus in on the grade and not the learning. And I think that, you know, as I look back at when I was growing up, you know, that was it. It was degrading care, what you learned. Let's get a good grade, because that's what people paid attention to. You know, and teachers are dealing with grades all the time. What's going to be on the test is question often asked to teachers. And, you know, even parents, you know, I was given five dollars for every a I got. And if it was anything other than an add and get anything.

Tripp: [00:06:59] So, you know, we've got this entire system with people that have grown up this way.And, you know, if it was, quote unquote, the way I had to live with it and not even good, then you should have to live with it, too.And I think this is a this is a universal problem. And the fact that we have this in education then is reflected in business, too.

Tripp: [00:07:25] I came across the article and linked and that Clifford Norman posted and, you know, talking about how, you know.Businesses maybe are finally starting to experiment. I thought, geez, you know, shouldn't we be doing that all the time and learning? And the problem might think we have is the fear of experimentation. And Doug Hall's talks quite a bit about that and innovation. There's this fear of failure. We don't innovate enough. And you've got you, Cliff Norman and this article that, you know, experimentation. It's like something new. And it was in Harvard Business Review is where the article was from. And it really does set my mind thinking about how little we experiment with the aim of learning.

Tripp: [00:08:19] It's kind of a you know, it's proving silly. It's it's a zero sum game.

Tripp: [00:08:24] There's gonna be winners and losers in all of these situations. And we tried it your way. You were wrong. And, you know, this is kind of bleeds out into Democrats and Republicans and conservatives and liberals. And I keep wondering, where's the learning? Forget about the joy in learning. But where's the learning in general?

Tripp: [00:08:44] In some in these systems. But going back to education, you know.

Tripp: [00:08:51] Eliminating grades challenges our education system and the people in it and the people I just talked about, the administrators, the teachers, the parents and the students, but the existing system is leaving people behind.

Tripp: [00:09:08] I just read an article by Andrea Gabor about a special needs school that was really doing some great things that cost per pupil was higher, which you might expect because somebody with, let's say, autism is going to have to get some extra help. But think of the benefits of that. If you can get this student to function normally within society and learn at the same time become a productive member.Back to Dr. Demings Aim. And unfortunately, I had to look up the numbers, but there in our existing system leaves too many behind.

Tripp: [00:09:55] How many people just give up? Ultimately, because, you know, they aren't getting good grades in school. Well, we know from the figures that I just saw, about 13 percent never graduate from high school, you know? So what happens with these people? And now some of them go on to great careers and find their find their ability to learn. But unfortunately, the barrier was our education system.

Tripp: [00:10:24] So I really you know, as as I look at this, I'm saying, what do we do next? What can we do as a a community? Deming, the Deming community to live through this education system.

Tripp: [00:10:43] And as I said, the people that I mentioned earlier are people all working on it.Are are all voices within the education system. But it just doesn't seem that learning is happening quite a quite a bit. I made some notes as I started going back to similar videos of David Langford talking at some of the Deming conferences and things.

Tripp: [00:11:07] And I think the words that kept coming up in my mind were artificial scarcity, the artificial scarcity that grades produce within the education system.

Tripp: [00:11:21] And and David Langford talks quite a bit about that in that, you know, why can't everybody get an A in a particular class and shouldn't that, you know, over whether there should be grades or not, everybody should have the opportunity to achieve, you know, in a state status.

Tripp: [00:11:40] And by virtue of putting the grades in school, we're creating this system of koc of competition. And I was always fascinated by some of the stories that that David talks about, about his students. You know, once they got kind of everybody is gonna get an a what's what's focus on learning how the people that got something much faster were able to help the people that weren't quite connecting and humorously.

Tripp: [00:12:11] He talks about how, you know, he's listening to these conversations between somebody who's understanding it and somebody who doesn't understand it.

Tripp: [00:12:21] As far as his students and how this person with the understanding would communicate in a way that David said, you know, I'd I'd I'd like they'll never get this by what they're saying, but it connected and that person was able to learn. And, you know, this goes back to some of Russell, a cough stuff that, you know, he talked quite a bit about the education system, specifically talks in terms of, you know, the traditional education system that focuses on teaching and not learning.

Tripp: [00:12:57] And he put a lot of emphasis on the fact that the actual learning comes about by teaching. And so the teacher learns more, but the student doesn't get it. We've lost the aim of what education is really all about.

Tripp: [00:13:17] So, you know, I wrote some a few things down that even Klfie Cohn talked about. One is the effects of grades. He says three things. Grades tend to diminish interest. The extrinsic motivation drives out the intrinsic motivation because the focus is all on the grade and not really the learning. The second thing he says is grades create a preference for the easiest possible task. So if you're going to get graded on something, why would I take on something hard, because if I'm going to want to get a grade, I want to get the way. I don't want to have to, you know.

Tripp: [00:14:01] Put extra effort in. And then get a C or a D. Because I wanted to challenge my learning. The third thing is grades reduce the quality of the student's thinking. And here he goes in and and talks about cheating. And you know how we'd generate this fear of failure. And it just you know, as you read all these things, you get back to really what the education system should be about, which is developing lifelong learners.

Tripp: [00:14:33] So my final question is, if learning is the aim, then what is the method that we're going to use and how are we going to continue to learn about what actually works rather than fighting over who's the winner and who's the loser of the last idea?

Tripp: [00:14:54] This is really ingrained in our society now, and I see this every day. And a lot of the transactions that you have in talking with people is somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. And this is really damaging not only our education system, but the way we go about thinking in politics and business and just about everything else. I hope this stimulated some conversation. If you listening to this about what the state of the education system in Yaffe through the lens of the grades. But like I said, I like to Deming lens to to become something more of stimulating conversation about very tough, big issues that are out there.

Tripp: [00:15:44] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming.org.

In our 33rd "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This month he looks at transforming an organization using the Deming Philosophy.

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Deming Institute Podcast -Deming Lens Episode 33

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Changes to Release of Episodes

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Transformation

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Transformation of an Organization

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Three Reasons to Transform

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Transformation from The New Economics and Out of the Crisis

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Continuous cs. Continual Improvement

Tripp: [00:00:14] In the thirty third Deming lens, we'll talk about transformation and the Deming philosophy.

Tripp: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast this month we're making some changes, I'm going to be doing 12 to 15 episodes during the course of 2020 and that that could be subject to change. But right now the plan is that I will at least do one of these Deming lens per month unless there's an interview that will be conducting.

Tripp: [00:01:00] This month, I'd like to cover transformation and transformation is significant to me because it was the first time I had heard it really applied to an organization back in the eighties when I was listening to Dr. Demings four day seminar and when he mentioned transformation for an organization, I thought that was so unusual.

Tripp: [00:01:28] I'd always heard people transforming themselves may maybe going from, you know, alcohol abuse to being sober or the way that they changed their lives, those types of things.

Tripp: [00:01:43] But it's the first time I heard the word transformation applied to an organization, so. I'd like to just kind of give you some observations, some quotes from Dr. Deming from both Out of the Crisis and The New Economics. And the first quote that I have written out here is the first step, and this is from out of Out of the Crisis step in the transformation is learn how to change.

Tripp: [00:02:12] That is to understand and use the 14 points and to cure themselves of the diseases, long term solvency, them solving problems big and small will not halt the decline of American industry, nor will computers, gadgets and robotic machinery and not even statistical methods.

Tripp: [00:02:33] So this is one of the things that really stood out to me in that he was saying and Out of the Crisis. The first step transformation is to learn how to change. And I would agree with that. I think that it and it's something that is very personal. But I think a lot of people, when they were first listening to Dr. Demings message thought transformation in terms of not necessarily themselves, even though they may have been transformed as an individual, but thinking in terms of the organization and in The New Economics, he said that the transformation begin.

Tripp: [00:03:19] The first step to transformation is with the individual. So The New Economics, which was written later, I think kind of qualifies that that change really has to happen at the individual level before you can really move to the organization. Now, I've experimented with different ways of doing this over the years and definitely there are some people that are not going to get transformed. You have to find people who are exploring or curious or put them in a mode of discovery in order to transform themselves.They have to be you know, you can't.

Tripp: [00:03:59] As I've mentioned in other episodes of this podcast that you cannot out logic somebody. You can not.Argue with them. They're not going to accept some of the things they're telling. And I've worked hard over the years to find ways for them. Them being the individual to discover for themselves and some people you spend some time on and others are never going to accept it. And that's just the nature of people. But, you know, I think the key here in making a transformation is getting to that critical mass of people.

Tripp: [00:04:42] Now, Russell, Ackoff mentioned the three ways that that reasons that people would be willing to transform themselves. The first way is that they're in a crisis. And the second way is that the CEO adopts it. And I think we see some of that with a lot of the people in the Deming community.

Tripp: [00:05:01] You had extaordinary leaders like Dick Steel and Paula Marshall and others that have gone out there and just said this is the right thing for me. Now, some of these people worked with Dr. Deming himself. So that obviously makes it a little bit easier to adopt. The third thing is that and where most transformation happens is going to be by other people within the organization that think it's the right thing to do for their company, for their organization. And they just kind of pick up the they got the gantlet and say, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this and they get other people involved. And I think that's not a bad way of going about it. You'd have to start somewhere. And as Dr. Deming told David Langford in a previous interview that I had with David was that when you reach a critical mass of people, so if you get a hundred people in your organization that Dr. Deming said the square root. Now, whether he made that up or whatever, it kind of makes sense to me. If you get 10 people on a 100 person organization to adopt that thinking, that's that's a lot of power within an organization to be able to make change within it. So this idea of starting with the individual does make sense to me. And then as you get to understand the first of all, the Deming philosophy or have a method to do so that you can begin the transformation from there.

Tripp: [00:06:42] So let me walk through a few of the things that I've written down. I just kind of pulled out from the word transformation. That was pretty repetitive. One thing that he said quite often in The New Economics and Out of the Crisis was that the transformation is to a new style of management. And and he really emphasized this multiple times in both books. Now, obviously, in the The New Economics would talk in terms of system, a profound knowledge. And then out of Out of the Crisis talk in terms of 14 points and the deadly diseases. But. He he was very adamant within the new The New Economics know, this is not for application to just shut the shop floor, and where we see a lot of the activities are the transformations going on. These wonderful things happen at the worker level and middle management gets a little bit weaker sometimes depending on who's champing at the bit. You know, you get to the executive, the executive level and then it gets a little rougher go and then obviously things die out. I think, you know, as I reflect on years of working with the Demings philosophy, I think the problem is we haven't focused on methods for executives to be able to adopt the Deming philosophy. I think it just makes sense at a worker level. I've never had a seminar or a workshop or a speech that I've given where the workers aren't standing there or sitting there shaking their heads.

Tripp: [00:08:35] Yeah, well, this yeah, it makes perfect sense, you know, to me. But you know, this isn't what our management's doing. And so we're Dr. Deming focused his time and effort was with management. And management is not a a does not necessarily want to be complicit in change. He liked the system the way that they like. And transformation for them is something. Now, that's something for the shop floor. And I think that these are some of the failings associated with things like Six Sigma and lean on other things that he talked about that, you know, he talked quite a bit about. It's not spontaneous. You have to kind of struggle with some of these concepts. I think at an individual and organizational level, as I've witnessed over the years, that there is no instant pudding. He also talked quite a bit and this is an interesting one to me because he talks in terms of its transformation is discontinuous. Now, I and the Deming users group that I participated in here in Indianapolis, one of the things we'd always say is continual improvement as opposed to continuous improvement. And that was a way for me anyway, as I could tell, whether people were Deming followers in the area by the words that they use, if they use the words continual improvement as opposed to continue suppor movement.

Tripp: [00:10:01] I knew that they were kind of in the Deming community.And the reason I was given that there is a difference between these two words is that it's an improvement is not continuous, it's not a straight line up, or that sometimes you have to take a couple steps back before you can move forward, which makes perfect sense when you start to look at plan to study, act and and experimentation sometimes. You know, this experiment is going to fail and you've got to move on to either another idea or pivot from it or scrap it or whatever you need to do. One other thing that he talked about in The New Economics was when I looked up, transformation was coming, that that the transformation has come from an outside view. And I think this is so important. And sometimes people say, oh, well, I need to get a consultant and then to be able to do the transformation. I certainly believe that can probably facilitate things happening faster for you. But I think more importantly is that you're taking a different view of your organization in order to make the transformation of yourself personally. It's something that I've been very passionate about as finding ways or methods for people to follow so that they can get an outside view, but not necessarily have somebody on site with them.

Tripp: [00:11:36] He also talked in terms of an Out of the Crisis, he talked on the transformation, that it's a directed effort and that it's a long term commitment and that it's everybody's job is job. And those are the primary words that are associated with Dr. Deming and transformation. One last comment I'll make about transformation is when you when you work with people, when or when I've worked with organizations, some people say, well, this is just common sense. And you know, Dr. Deming, I always laugh because when Dr. Deming would would talk in terms of what commonsense has told us to do in the past, and they are things like rank people on the job, the rank teams, divisions, dealers, the costs in hospitals reward the best, punish the worse quotas. Speak to a person that made the error. Reward the salesman of the month. All of these things are things that obviously people thought were common sense.

Tripp: [00:12:52] And I and a lot of them are steeped in different thinking.

Tripp: [00:12:58] And this is the transformation. It's it's a transformation of the way that you think. And taking the Deming philosophy and applying that to yourself first. You getting getting a view, then I think you can begin to look at the organization and maybe pull other people and get to the critical mass that we talked about in order to make that transformation.

Tripp: [00:13:26] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 32nd "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This week he looks at Dr. Deming and some of the thoughts and people involved in "appreciation for a system."

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Deming Institute Podcast - Deming Lens Episode #32

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History of Systems Thinking - General System Theory

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Systems Thinking - Organizational Structure

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Analytical vs. Synthetic Thinking - The Parts vs the Whole

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The Aim and Systems Thinking

Tripp: [00:00:14] This is Deming Lens Episode 32 in this episode, we'll be talking about systems thinking some of the history and people involved in it and then some of the applications of it.

Tripp: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt Host of the  Deming lens and in this episode I want to talk about systems thinking I have over the years read many books on the subject and it is the first of Dr Demings for components that make up his system, a profound knowledge which he talks about appreciation for a system. And I will start with a little bit of history. We'll talk a little bit about organizational structure from a systems thinking standpoint. We'll talk about how our minds are made up of analytical thinking. We'll talk also about Russell Ackoff as an architect. I think it's a great example that he would use. And then the last thing is I want to talk about systems thinking in terms of the aim of an organization.

Tripp: [00:01:30] So let's start with a little bit of history, which is the first of the five pieces of this and the people involved in it. And the original as far as I'm aware, the original thought around general systems thinking came from Ludwig von Bertalanffy Bertalanffy. He wrote a book actually called General Systems Theory. It's an interesting read. I do find it very interesting also that the concept of systems and general systems theory comes from his work in biology. So there was a lot of times I've talked to people over the years and they don't think science should mix with business and organizations and and things of that sort. But I disagree with that from the standpoint of we've learned a lot from science and it does shed light on the way that organizations are put together and how they interact. And as new theories develop, I'm sure that the advancement may come from science. So Bertalanffy may have actually done a seminar or presented a paper that W. Edwards Deming was in attendance.

Tripp: [00:02:54] Now, I have not been able to verify that someone had written that it was actually a professor and I reached out to him and he was not able to find his original notes on the crossover between Bertalanffy and Deming. But I would say since Dr. Deming was knowledgeable about systems thinking that there's a good possibility since the paper that he released was in or had been working on was in the late 1940s, and then he put it in the 50s. So he was presenting a paper, is most likely presenting it before it was put into a book format.

Tripp: [00:03:37] So Bertalanffy is one of those people that really started this this whole movement, at least as I said, as best as I could find. I don't know that you get a lot if you're working on an organization from Bertalanffy, but I will put links out so that you can get a hold of his book. Another person that I read her book was Donella Meadow's, which is Thinking and Systems, and I think it's a good general overview of systems thinking.

Tripp: [00:04:13] And then there is also Russell Ackoff and Peter singing and Russell a cough is probably makes up most of my thinking around systems thinking other than what Dr. Deming wrote as part of a system of profound knowledge. Now, I remember Dr. Deming basically said you don't have to be an expert in each one of the areas of his system or profound knowledge. So systems, thinking, variation, theory, variation, theory, knowledge and psychology. Or knowledge about variation and and psychology. But if you wanted to get deeper, which I enjoy doing, I like to go back. I liked understand the history. I like to understand how things moved over a period of years with regards to the thinking and how is it advancing what we're doing. But Russell Ackoff to me wrote in in a language that I could understand better. Peter Senge wrote some good stuff. And I know people that really get a lot out of his readings. I just didn't get what I needed from Peter Senge. Now, Russell Ackoff wrote a number of books. There's some things I agree with him on. There's some things I disagree with him on. One would be idealized redesign. I think that that systems are not scoped out and then you build to it because I think by the time you build it, it's it needs to be improved. So there has to be this component of almost a dynamic system that's constantly renewing itself as opposed to constantly building models that you have to build to.

Tripp: [00:05:54] But that could be a whole another Deming lens and maybe at some point in the future. So anyway, those are the players that there are many others that are out there have written in. And I apologize. I haven't read everyone's work, but I've read others works. But those people stand out in my mind as probably the most influential. From where I sit on the subject as systems thinking.

Tripp: [00:06:23] Now. The what's what's kind of go with the second part about organizational structure and let's think in terms of some of things I've talked about in the past, which is Frederick Taylor and Taylor ism and talk in terms of how we've built most of our organizations and for all of our technological advancements.

Tripp: [00:06:50] Most organizations are all designed in the same way. We've separated out the pieces that make up an organization like sales and operations and counting and things of that sort. But it's from one perspective, it is all one system that has to work together in order to achieve its optimal ability to work as a system.

Tripp: [00:07:21] So Taylor separated the parts he was working on and thinking in terms of optimizing each of the parts of an of an organization, and this kind of takes me back to something that Ackoff said, which is a system taken apart, loses its essential properties. So it's this whole thinking of if we add up the pieces, if we break them apart and we add them up, then we will get what the system is capable of doing. And we also know from Russell AcKoff, the system is greater than the sum of its parts. There's the interaction of them. And there's actually a good song out there. I was presented by someone who I thought was a systems thinker. It turned out later that they really weren't. But it was a good song, which is Johnny Cash had has a song about building a Cadillac and it called One Piece at a Time.

Tripp: [00:08:31] So taking each of the best parts of a Cadillac from year to year and building the Cadillac from apart from, you know, 1959, 1960 and so forth and trying to build a car from that, I actually put a link in to Johnny Cash's song One Piece at a time, because it's a great representation of the way that we've kind of built organizations in the way that we think about things and in our analytical thinking, which is this is a great Segway into the third part I wanted to talk about, which is systems thinking versus this analytical thinking that we break down things into pieces and it's a natural thing. It's innate. As children, we take things apart, you know, and that's just kind of the way it's built in to a human is breaking those things apart.

Tripp: [00:09:33] The product of analysis is how things work. Not why they work the way that they do. So one of the things I do as I was watching some old Russell Ackoff videos I found was, you know, why was does a car have the engine in the front instead of someplace else in the car? Well, if you break it down a car and you break it out in the different pieces, the door, the engine, and and so it's not gonna tell you why the engine is is in front. What what you have to know or what you have to think in terms of is the system is that the car was originally called a horseless carriage. And so where were horses? Horses were in front.

Tripp: [00:10:20] So we have to be able to take that and understand that that analysis takes you inside the system. But an explanation takes you. Outside the system.

Tripp: [00:10:38] Now, what are the things I didn't know that I find very interesting was that apparently Russell, Ackoff, was an architect, and he said that architects are naturally systems thinkers. Which I thought was was interesting. And he gives us the example of that,  an architect drawls the house first or the building first, the whole. Then he adds the barrooms and the parts and things of that sort. And they go off of an architect would build off a systems principle of it, basically only improve a room in a way that improves the house.

Tripp: [00:11:17] So the house has to be better by virtue of improving a room. But if it takes away from the whole which is the house, then it's something you wouldn't do. In a matter of fact He makes the comment that if he can make a room worse and make the house better, that he would do it as an architect and that the objective was to build the best house, not the best rooms. And actually in this video, he gave a good example. Somebody who had to run up and down the stairs a lot in order to get to the kitchen and take things back upstairs and so forth. And they said, hey, I need a dumbwaiter so that, you know, you put the food in, I can get it up to the second floor without having to run back and forth down the stairs each time.

Tripp: [00:12:05] And with the understanding that that would take away room from the kitchen, making the kitchen worse. But for that system, it made it overall better. And I think these are some of the concepts that most organizations are still missing today is that we're not taking a good look at. These kind of counterintuitive, the counter intuitive nature of some of the things that you find in systems in order to make a hole better. Now, Russell, Ackoff talks in terms of, you know it with analysis that you're taking things apart. You explain the behavior of the part and then you try and aggregate, aggregate and understanding the parts to aggregate understanding of the whole. And this gets in to that. A system is greater than the sum of its parts and analysis does not get us there. What he's presenting instead is synthetic thinking is what is this system a part of? So, you know, one of some of Demings favorite favorite quotes were about buggy whips and carburetors and things of that sort. And in order to be able to look at what what system are you and what broader system are you in, your cars are not in the automobile business. They're in the transportation business. So there are things that can threaten, you know, maybe even drones nowadays that can threaten the way that people transport themselves from one location to another. So the synthetic thinking is what is this this system a part of? Explain that behavior. The second step is explaining the behavior, the containing whole. And then it is disaggregating the understanding of the containing whole. By identifying the role or function of what you're trying to explain in the whole.

Tripp: [00:14:17] So those are two different actually two different ways of thinking for between being an analytical thinker and a synthetic thinker. And the approach that you take on things. Now, this is a good Segue into this last last piece I wanted to talk about, which has to do with Aim. And this is one of the reasons that in what I'm building and what I believe needs to happen in order to understand Dr. Demings system, a profound knowledge is that, first of all, that it is a philosophy and it doesn't give you a step by step. And as I mentioned in the last Heming lens, it's very difficult to grasp some of the things in the Deming philosophy because they are very counterintuitive to belief systems. Two things that are going on in organizations to what you're being taught in your MBA program. I can tell you everything I learned in my MBA program, I had to unwind in my head once I started reading Dr. Demings works and applying some of thinking that's that's in it. So in order to do that, we have to become critical thinkers.

Tripp: [00:15:30] So part of what I'm building in separate activity that I'm doing away from the Deming Institute is how do we look at our organization and look at it as a system and taking you through. And to me, that's a primary step, is being able to look at our organization as a system. And first of all, conclude that at least over 50 percent of the performance you're and organization, whether it's fifty point one percent or 60 percent or whatever it is, comes from the system and not an individual or outside types of of things that are going on within an organization that it's this interaction of the parts that Dr. Deming talked about, the Russell a cough talked about to degree Bertalan he talked about and certainly Donella Meadow's and Peter Senge talk about AI in their teaching. So I don't know how you can write a name, which is the second part of the system that I'm building. And to you have a good understanding of the system and understanding the business that you're in, because if you're out there improving buggy whips and carburetors, you're out of business. You have to understand what business you're in. And by virtue of that, you have to understand the broader system in which you're contained and for automobiles. It is the transportation system. And to be able to write an aim, you've got to have that particular knowledge.

Tripp: [00:17:07] And I don't believe most organizations have enough systems, knowledge in many cases to put together a good purpose or what references aim, which I views mission, vision, values and key measurements as part of what makes up an aim. But it's the systems thinking component that allows you to get the critical thinking that you need. And it's one of things I'm building in order to come up with a way for people to be able to look at their own system and using neuroscience instead of things I've learned from neuroscience too. And ironically, neuro brains, even though phrenology and different types of things, Yale bumps on the head. We've gone through this evolutionary process of learning and neuroscience where, you know, people thought that a bump in the head meant something and was associated. Then we kind of went to this kind of functional orientation, same as Taylor actually breaking down the pieces and saying, oh, well, if you're afraid, it comes from this part of the brain and the fight or flight comes from the amygdala and those types of things. Well, the more that they've studied the brain, you more they there may be functions that are involved in it on a regular basis. But the more that the interaction with the parts of your brain go to go together and operate as a system. So I'm all of this kind of fits together.

Tripp: [00:18:46] And I think that said, there are some interesting other readings going on with regards to neuroscience. But it's the thing I talked about in the last Deming Lens, which is you can't. Argue you can't out logic somebody. They have to learn on their own and giving them experiences, crafting an experience for them to be able to go through so that they can kind of begin to see things differently. And this is just my view on it. Other people have other things. There are people that go to the Redbead experiment and get it right off. I think that they're most likely in the minority. I was one of those and thought everybody would just get it because the logic just kills you. But it's just not that way. And I think looking at your own organization and being able to to look at it and understand it as a system is is certainly a part of this critical thinking. That and crafting an experience for people to get this type of critical thinking will help them understand the Deming philosophy better. So that's really it. I just want to talk about systems thinking some random thoughts I had about how systems thinking is not only part of Dr. Deming's system, profound, profound knowledge, but potentially where maybe he got some of his initial thinking, maybe did sit in on Bertalanffy Seminars are preset presentation of a paper before his book on general systems theory came out, because there's certainly a lot of parallels between some of the things that Dr. Deming wrote and what's in General Systems theory by Bertalanffy. And I've always enjoyed and Russell Ackoff obviously has been in talks and and things with Dr. Deming in the past.

Tripp: [00:20:43] So that's it for this Deming Lens. Hopefully you learn something and if you have comments or something new, maybe you can correct me on which I am correctable. make no apologies for learning, as Dr. Deming would say, but you can reach me at [email protected].

Tripp: [00:21:06] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming dot org.

In our 31st "Deming Lens" episode, host Tripp Babbitt shares his interpretation of wide-ranging aspects and implications of Dr. Deming's theory of management. This week he looks at Dr. Deming's message of "win-win."

[00:00:15]
Deming Institute Podcast - Episode 31

[00:00:53]
The Deming Lens - The "Win'Win" of Dr. Deming's Message

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The Deming Philosophy Socialism

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The US Mindset

[00:07:00]
The Neuroscience of Deming

[00:08:05]
Using System of Profound Knowledge for "Win-Win"

Tripp: [00:00:15] This is episode 31 of the Deming lens. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the win win of Dr. Demings message.

Tripp: [00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast, and this week I was doing a little bit of, I don't know, reminiscing, looking back at some of the old podcasts that I episodes that I'd done in the past, and I came across one that seemed very appropriate for the times that we seem to be on.

Tripp: [00:00:53] And I'm not trying to drag this podcast into the politics of things, but I found that Dr. Demings message was very unique. And so I've titled this up Deming Lens. The Win Win of Demings message. And I'll play this. Little clip that came out of a 10 minutes with Dr. Deming that I did back in, I think it was 2016. So let me play this clip and then we'll talk about it.

Audience: [00:01:32] Our participants up here are wondering if you are proposing a socialist society.

Dr. Deming: [00:01:39] Well, I never said any such thing. Maybe you did. You brought it up. I didn't. Win-win, win-win everybody win. Are you against it? Nobody is against it. Win-win. Everybody win.

Audience: [00:01:59] But is that socialism, doctor?

Dr. Deming: [00:02:05] Oh, that's nonsense. Let's get a little sense into our heads. Socialism means this.

Tripp: [00:02:11] What Dr. Deming goes on to draw. Here is a bell curve, a very wide bell curve. People on one end of the bell curve for the people that have a high income. And then on the lower end, it's people with a low income and then obviously a lot of people in the middle. And what he describes socialism as is moving the people on the high end and the low end to the middle. As opposed to what he's talking about is shifting the entire bell curve to the right so that everybody has higher incomes, but a much narrower bell curve.

Dr. Deming: [00:02:55] We're trying to win-win everybody win. Everybody get ahead.

Audience: [00:03:00] I'm concerned that your ideals might be perceived as socialist and that people of 10 Americans tend to have a negative view of socialism as opposed to capitalism over.

Dr. Deming: [00:03:11] We're just trying to find her aim here is to survive. We've been describing a system and a system. There's one in which everybody comes out, this UN system must have an aim. The aim that I propose is that everybody gain. Everybody come out ahead. The stockholders. Quality of life for everybody.

Tripp: [00:03:37] In this last clip, Dr. Deming talks about what motivates people.

Audience: [00:03:41] If paying people doesn't motivate them and measuring people doesn't motivate them. Then what does motivate them?

Dr. Deming: [00:03:50] Well, I don't think we need to recall all of yesterday. All people ask for a chance to take joy in their work. That's what they ask for more than anything, because they've got to pay. They've got to live,.

Tripp: [00:04:06] As I search through out of the crisis, I found this particular quote, which is education, industry and government should interact as a system with cooperation. Win, win. And I made a little note add I know how many years ago, but I said cooperation equals everybody wins.

Tripp: [00:04:27] And that's really the message we have here. And I don't know what form of marketplace that we have or government or any of those types of things. But the idea, Dr. Demings idea of win, win, no matter what form of government you have, no matter what market system that you have, whether you're a capitalist or a socialist or whatever you might be, that everybody wins.

Tripp: [00:04:57] So that is opposed to some of the things that we see played out, especially in the U.S., where we have a zero sum game where somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. And a lot of this is cultural. We're very competitive society as we grow up playing baseball or basketball. When team wins, when team loses. And that's kind of the mindset of especially Americans. You know, that that somehow this has to play out in business. And once we look to cooperation, that everybody can win. And Dr. Demings message in that, that gets much, much different. Now, I could tell you that over the years, having done workshops and seminars and it go through Redbeard experiment, the one sticking point for everybody and Dr. Demings message is always this idea of win win and how he he thinks about rewards and bonuses and things of that sort.

Tripp: [00:06:01] And. Almost every time I and I can't remember a time when it didn't come up. Somebody would say, wasn't this either communism or socialism? And I think that it's a much different message than that. It's one of how do we look at our system? How do we make it so that everybody can win? And I think that's a really important message, especially for the times that we are in now, is how can we benefit all people?

Tripp: [00:06:34] It's not a matter, as Dr. Deming said, at least in his message, is that it's not a matter of moving people with high incomes to the middle and the low incomes more to the middle. It's a matter of shifting the entire curve of the people so that everybody's winning and that that everybody's coming out ahead. And that is something that that needs needs to be focused on.

Tripp: [00:07:00] And it really gets to a lot of things in neuroscience in that if if we aren't being in a situation where we can be win, win, then we wind up getting into these arguments that we have now about fairness and what's fairness is compromised in people's minds, then they that it creates a really bad situation in organizations.

Tripp: [00:07:31] It's something that you're being evaluated on all the time. And I think it's why a lot of people, when the bell rings, are ready to go home and actually do something they enjoy.

Tripp: [00:07:41] And it doesn't have to be that way. If if we're looking for policies, if we're looking to develop a system, how do we go about developing a win win scenario for everybody in the organization? Even with competitors and for society as a whole, it's a great question to ponder.

Tripp: [00:08:05] Dr. Demings recipe or suggestion for coming up with a win win is all steeped in his system of profound knowledge.

Tripp: [00:08:17] The more that we understand the systems that we work in and we understand that they're greater than the sum of their parts. There's a Senate synergy that exists by improving a system. So that's the first part.

Tripp: [00:08:31] Another part would be how do we go about learning so many organizations are?

Tripp: [00:08:40] Do they make a decision and whether it works or not? I made a decision and I move forward with it. But they're not willing to change that decision or pivot that decision on that decision or scrap that decision. And this creates another scenario where you you are in a win lose.

Tripp: [00:09:03] And it's this hierarchical type of thinking that creates I I'm in charge. I have the power. And therefore, you and if I'm doing something wrong and you can see it doesn't matter because I have the power so that the learning component theory of knowledge becomes a major factor, that we are failing and improving and not just making decisions and then kind of firmly planting our feet in the ground or our heads in the sand. The other part is, you know, if you understand the systems component, you can understand it from a theory of variation standpoint by looking at your organization as a system and how the outputs of the data that you have and everyone's heard me ramp before, but not enough organization is a organizations are using an understanding of control charts and using controlled charts in their organization to help improve. It's mind boggling to me how you put it can improve without having a control chart. And then the fourth thing is psychology. I've started looking into neuroscience and how that is playing out. But in essence, the psychology of it, at least what's just take a look at neuroscience. And I talked earlier about fairness. Well, fairness is a huge component. Autonomy is a huge component of an employee or a person in a in a country under some rule. We all look at fairness and whether things are perceived as fair. But there's a lot of different types of actions that you can take and development of new theories to achieve a win win that Dr. Deming talked about in this message.

Tripp: [00:11:00] So I think that this is. Something that. Everyone should take to heart and then try and find Win-Win types of situations in their organizations. And if you take Dr. Deming system of profound knowledge and overlay that in your organization, start to look at things from that perspective. I think you think that you'll come out ahead.

Tripp: [00:11:23] Now, I personally have found it very difficult to change people's thinking because Dr. Demings message is perceived in many circles, especially when you get in to salespeople as a socialist type of mindset, because, you know, it's all about the commission, it's all about the rewards, it's all about those types of things. So my adventures have taken me to the point that if you're going, you can't change people's minds. It's just you can't have it's not possible. I believe may have tried to out logic people. I've tried to argue with people about Dr. Demings message and the logic of it. But it's such an emotional thing that it's very difficult to change people's look. You can't change people's thinking and they have to change it on their own. It's the bottom line. And what you can do is put out put them in situations where they can experience things very differently. And something I've been working on very heavily is putting a critical thinking class together so that people can experience within their own organizations.

Tripp: [00:12:43] Dr. Demings win win type of message. So putting him in situations where they can be critical thinkers about what's going on does not judge mental types of thinking. But looking at the organ is taking a step back. What's going on within your own organization and.

Tripp: [00:13:03] Putting you in scenarios that you can start to see the advantages of the system, a profound knowledge.

Tripp: [00:13:15] Thank you for listening to the Deming Institute podcast. Stay updated on the latest blogs, podcasts, programs and other activities at Deming.org.