Wes Bucey
Prophet of Profit
If you want the feeling of smashing your head against a brick wall, try going into a medium size company still run by the original owner (whether or not he's sold off some of the company) and try telling this "self-made man" his company could be more efficient and profitable and grow more rapidly if he would embrace Deming's System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) throughout his company. You then try to hide your tears as you listen to him rant any one or all of the following points: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).
- It's MY company; I know what's best
- They'll steal all my secrets
- If they know so much, why are they working for me?
- They'll want higher pay
- I got where I am by following MY ideas!
"There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
Sounds a little like Deming whose first point was:
"Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs."
If someone says to you, "I have a way to increase your efficiency and profit" shouldn't you at least listen to the pitch before making excuses to not even listen?
I know I have an uphill battle (one I might not want to take) when a prospective client who is an owner or top executive continually uses the pronouns "I" "me" and "my" and rarely says, "we" "us" "our" in the initial interview. If the guy can't think in terms of being part of an organization instead of being THE BOSS, he's probably completely antithetical to Point eight, DRIVE OUT FEAR.