Dr. Deming's most neglected Points and Diseases

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Leader
Super Moderator
Got to thinking about this after reading about United Airlines new effort to put in place a lottery based reward system.
In my mind that's a complete abomination that perverts the already bad idea of performance based ratings.

In your careers what do you feel are them most neglected or ignored of the 14 points and 7 diseases?

In my years in manufacturing it's been the disease of Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance. I have yet to join a company that does not require this. Some more rigidly that others. And I chafe against it every time. I try, very hard, to "institute leadership" by communicating with my staff, being there for them, and addressing issues as they arise rather than wait until some made up date when I'll be asked to rate them on something that happened 11 months ago and should have been corrected or rewarded 11 months ago.

Most recently would be point 14...My last experience was in complete opposition to this point with a supposedly very enlightened company. Instead of "THE Transformation" it was "QA's Transformation" and "Ops' Transformation". I'm sure you can imagine how that went.
 

optomist1

A Sea of Statistics
Super Moderator
Dr. Deming's teachings are making its way to the building industry, or at least folks are finally listening.....spent some time in this field, although drastically different from manufacturing, there are many aspects of this field where his teachings are of great value

"Emphasis on short term profits," to this day most US firms still march to the tune of Wall Street reviews and critiques......a major error in judgment, the real good ones focus on their long-term goals, ignoring for the most part quarter to quarter performance reviews

See this link to a building publication article, lauding and pleading for their adoption & application
https://www.probuilder.com/reelin-years-or-why-dr-w-edwards-deming-never-gets-old
 

Golfman25

Trusted Information Resource
With regard to performance reviews we are moving toward reviews that focus on alignment with our core values. So people who get what we do and why are keepers. Those who aren't with the program can be replaced.
 

Mike S.

Happy to be Alive
Trusted Information Resource
In my years in manufacturing it's been the disease of Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance. I have yet to join a company that does not require this. Some more rigidly that others. And I chafe against it every time. I try, very hard, to "institute leadership" by communicating with my staff, being there for them, and addressing issues as they arise rather than wait until some made up date when I'll be asked to rate them on something that happened 11 months ago and should have been corrected or rewarded 11 months ago.

So your company requires an annual performance review. But you feel this clashes with Deming’s Point #12. So be flexible, do both (communicating with staff, being there for them, and addressing issues as they arise, etc.) and summarize all that in the annual performance review. Win-win.
 

ScottK

Not out of the crisis
Leader
Super Moderator
So your company requires an annual performance review. But you feel this clashes with Deming’s Point #12. So be flexible, do both (communicating with staff, being there for them, and addressing issues as they arise, etc.) and summarize all that in the annual performance review. Win-win.

yah - that's what I end up doing from a pragmatic standpoint, but even with great relationships the review process is stressful and demoralizing.
So much in my last organization that it was a prime driver for my choosing to leave. I refuse to believe there is any benefit having to fit your staff to a curve and being told that I can't have more than 10% of my staff rated at the highest level.
 

Mike S.

Happy to be Alive
Trusted Information Resource
There are different ways to perform annual performance reviews just like there are different way to perform root cause analysis or process improvement or just about any other business function. Some are wrong/harmful (like what you mentioned) , some are so-so, some are much better than others.

Sometimes reality prevents 100% implementation of Dr. Deming's ideals.
 

Ninja

Looking for Reality
Trusted Information Resource
I also have ranted wildly (elsewhere) against the structured annual review system.
I understand the legal CYA that it can provide...sort of...a tiny bit...but it's still useless to me.

Two requests I always made at the outset of any review (that I was giving):
1. If you hear anything in this meeting that is a surprise, I want you to stop me and tell me about it...that only happens when I'm not doing my job well enough and I need to know about it.

2. Short of skipping this meeting, what would you do to make it less stressful/annoying?

Only one person, ever, has told me that they prefer the formal annual approach. They thought that they got a bigger raise in a formal setting (They didn't).
 
C

cal guy

yah - that's what I end up doing from a pragmatic standpoint, but even with great relationships the review process is stressful and demoralizing.
So much in my last organization that it was a prime driver for my choosing to leave. I refuse to believe there is any benefit having to fit your staff to a curve and being told that I can't have more than 10% of my staff rated at the highest level.
Many years ago I left a very good company because of annual performance review system. The reasons I left are precisely what Dr. Deming points to as what is wrong with that system.
 
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