Mike,
A good question to ask.
Deming would approve of numerical goals, provided they were established with Knowledge of Variation. I have not read the thread, so I can’t comment on whether this fits with that discussion. He also discussed things he called “facts of life”. For instance, if you must cut costs by 20% to stay in business, then you’ll have to do it or suffer the consequences. Under the circumstances of closure, targets might have to be set outside the limits of what would normally be achievable in a stable and predictable process.
To the point Wes was making, setting targets outside of the upper/lower control limits leads to two dangers: the feeling of loss when targets are not attainable (psychological damage); targets are attained at cost to other areas in the business/system (system damage).
How many objectives, targets, or goals are established daily without SoPK? What kinds of damage are created because of this? Dr. Deming was never against establishing performance indicators, provided they were for the system and not for individuals. He was insistent that these be established with knowledge (SoPK).
Wes,
Interesting thing about Management by Objective, the creator of this theory hasn’t endorsed its use for nearly 25 years (Peter Drucker). He admits in his later publications that he wished he never created it as he realized that the theory was based on several false assumptions. If one takes a look into the National Archives, you’ll see that WED and Drucker corresponded often. I’m tempted to read some of these letters to see if Dr. Deming influenced Drucker to reconsider his position. Sadly, MBA programs most everywhere still promote this as part of their curriculums.
The biggest false assumption in your snippo is the assumption that the individual has significant control over the outcome. This connects well with Mike’s question with regards setting the target. If the target is set within the limits, one can hit the target without lifting a finger, and probably will. If the target is outside the limits, they may work very hard to achieve and not make it, thus failing and subject to some predetermined consequence. Then again, to avoid the consequence, one might resort to less than ethical, moral and sometimes illegal practices to get it. This may in fact be the most damaging oversight of the Six Sigma methodology. Distorting numbers to hit targets is manipulation. With distorted ‘facts’, the result is that the System is further off target than it would otherwise have been if one didn’t set a goal in the first place. Deming illustrates this well with the Funnel Experiment.
Dave does well to include the other points and their relationships (Nice going!!!)
Mike,
To your later point. Yes, before Deming, I set goals for myself and for my subordinates. I did change my view of this after 'converting'. Did I stop setting goals? No, I just changed the method of how goals were set and what the were set on (processes or people). What I elected to do was to define who had ownership for a process parameter and established SPC tracking for it. My associate would plot points and review the data daily to determine stability of the process and to determine common/special cause variables. They learned first to eliminate special causes (where they could) and how to improve the process through minimization of the affects of common causes. However, they weren't appraised on these factors.
Craig,
In the foreword for "Fourth Generation Management" (Deming's last foreword to my knowledge), he addresses the need to measure things. More specifically, he tells management that they had better manage the things that can't be measured, or their future is certainly unlikely. He often restated the comments made by Lloyd Nelson that the most important numbers are "unknown and unknowable". But he also made it clear that we need to be mindful of what these are and do our best to manage them effectively (i.e. the cost of a lost customer, the ROI on Training). If one can, read the foreward to the book above. He did a better job of explaining this than I did.
Dave/Mike/Wes,
To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Deming never endorsed the award named after him. In fact, when he was presented with the very first award, I recall reading that he did it out of respect of the Japanese. The same is true when he recieved an award presented to him by President Clinton, although I believe Cecilia in her book The World of Dr. Deming (?) has preserved the award from Clinton as one of his most coveted acknowledgements. I'm not sure which is right on the latter.
Back to the group…
Kevin