Are we alone? (When no one knows who Deming is).

[Jane Austen]

Hi all,

In my organization the QM department is amazing! I truly think people are smart and dedicated and hard working. The work gets done values of customer focus and continuous improvement are of high value and it’s a great place to work.

But, aside from myself no one really knows the history of the quality management profession, no one knows who Deming or the other gurus are. No one talks about special and common causes or variation.

I sometimes feel a bit alone in this, does it happen to anyone else?

(And yes I tried to bring up the point that maybe this should be trained to the entire department but so far I wasn’t able to convince that this is extremely important. I only tried once and briefly, I do believe that if I insist I can make this work. But I’m more asking about- why are not al people already know about these things? How can we make a renaissance in this profession?).

Thank you!

 

[Jen Kirley]

I deal with this all the time. I am the only one in my Supplier Quality team who knows the Quality Gurus and the subject's general history. I have been including a tiny history lesson in my e-learning modules, but the viewers are unlikely to be transfixed by it so I guess it is more important that his lessons be learned and applied - at least the very simple PDCA.

 

[Tidge]

I've been in organizations that, if I was being generous, exemplified the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon when it comes to Quality... but that would be giving too much credit. A better explanation for the worst behaviors I witness was fundamentally a lack in critical thinking:

1. People didn't look for root causes
2. People didn't recognize when the same/similar issue reoccurred
3. People wanted to believe that "things just fix themselves"
4. There was an underlying belief that some metaphysical reason was behind whatever challenge the organization faced

The final point was driven home by leadership comments like "the regulators are out to get us", "no one wants to buy these types of products (even though they buy competitors)", "why does no one source these 20-year old components any more?", etc.

One company's leadership ended up being outright hostile anytime anything Deming-adjacent was mentioned... a succession of external groups hired to help that company sort out its issues (think PWC and like) kept making the same recommendations (that were never implemented) so any internal suggestion along similar lines was met with open scorn.

I tried my best to encourage problem-solving among my teams. We applied the same sort of approach (no WAGs!) to our issues to find and address the root causes. The less mentally nimble typically only remembered solutions and not how we arrived at them.

 

[optomist1]

Hi Jane,

I (we) feel your pain and quasi-isolation...in my case I have been most fortunate to have cut my teeth for the first +10 years within the Aero/Defense field where the QA heritage is or was integral to the larger company. After departing the Aero/Defense arena, I encountered what you are experiencing.

On occasion here is what I have found to be effective, approach your Mgr/Sr. Mgr and offer to conduct "monthly or weekly" Lunch & Learn" sessions, to share the QA heritage and its importance as business imperative. Of course the cost of the Lunch portion "should be" picked up by your Mgr or department?

hope this helps...
optomist1

 

[John Predmore]

I sometimes feel a bit alone in this, does it happen to anyone else?

It can be lonely at the top. This adage applies not only to people in formal leadership, but to people who lead the transformation. That is why communities such as Elsmar Cove are important for you to find inspiration and hope.

people are smart and dedicated and hard working

Nothing sells like results. The business world is full of people who profess to be smart, who appear to be dedicated and hard-working. But "best efforts are not enough. You have to know what to do." The person who consistently delivers superlative results, "the world will beat a path to his door".

 

[Sidney Vianna]

But, aside from myself no one really knows the history of the quality management profession, no one knows who Deming or the other gurus are.

You don’t need to know who Pasteur was to realize the benefits of vaccination. I would focus on the sound techniques of the “quality science”, which apparently are embraced at your organization and strive to make all in upper management realize the financial benefits of embedding all relevant quality practices in the business processes. That’s how Quality flourishes and quality becomes unnecessary. Very few companies in the world ever have the epiphany that quality should never be an independent department nor function. Quality, just like ethics, safety, innovation, etc. should be a state of mind, a business ethos.

 

[Bev D]

I've been in organizations that, if I was being generous, exemplified the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon when it comes to Quality... but that would be giving too much credit. A better explanation for the worst behaviors I witness was fundamentally a lack in critical thinking:

1. People didn't look for root causes
2. People didn't recognize when the same/similar issue reoccurred
3. People wanted to believe that "things just fix themselves"
4. There was an underlying belief that some metaphysical reason was behind whatever challenge the organization faced

The final point was driven home by leadership comments like "the regulators are out to get us", "no one wants to buy these types of products (even though they buy competitors)", "why does no one source these 20-year old components any more?", etc.

One company's leadership ended up being outright hostile anytime anything Deming-adjacent was mentioned... a succession of external groups hired to help that company sort out its issues (think PWC and like) kept making the same recommendations (that were never implemented) so any internal suggestion along similar lines was met with open scorn.

I tried my best to encourage problem-solving among my teams. We applied the same sort of approach (no WAGs!) to our issues to find and address the root causes. The less mentally nimble typically only remembered solutions and not how we arrived at them.

Well that sounds sooooo familiar!

It’s not about knowing who Deming was, or who Youden was or Ott or Seder, or whomever. It’s about knowing what they taught. Teach the good stuff and put the recognition of who pioneered it in a footnote. No one cares about the dead guys, that is so yesterday.

 

[Randy]

No one cares about the dead guys, that is so yesterday.

Flitter, I don't care about some of the living guys, just look at the junk you see posted places like Linkedin.

 

[Miner]

And the really egregious ones turn into trolls when you call them out.

 

[Miner]

It’s not about knowing who Deming was, or who Youden was or Ott or Seder, or whomever. It’s about knowing what they taught. Teach the good stuff and put the recognition of who pioneered it in a footnote. No one cares about the dead guys, that is so yesterday.

I have a hard rule for training materials: "No pictures of DEAD Guys!" Focus on their ideas, not a history lesson. Adding the history lessons, a lot of quotes and clip art was perpetuated by consultants as a time and slide deck filler to justify the duration of their course and to appear more knowledgeable than they are.