While W. Edwards Deming is identified with transforming low quality to high
quality, his own focus involved moving from ineffective management and
leadership to effective management though effective leadership. He
considered his fourteen points to be "principles for the transformation of
Western management" (Deming 1986: 18) and the "transformation of ...
industry" (Deming 1986: 23).
Quality is a natural outcome of a system that Deming terms "profound
knowledge" (Deming 1993: 94-118). Deming's method is based on the
development of social, intellectual and psychological values operating in
comprehensive organization-wide systems that capture and reinforce the
values and knowledge of an entire organization. Deming saw organizations as
organic entireties linked by the flow of knowledge. He understood and
outlined the leadership criteria, the human criteria, the ethical criteria
that make it possible for knowledge to flow effectively through
organizations. While many consider Deming's theories and practices to be
the highest expression of effective leadership for the industrial age, the
system of profound knowledge can also be seen as an articulate leadership
system for the knowledge economy.
"A system of profound knowledge," Deming writes, " appears ... in four
parts, all related to each other: appreciation for a system; knowledge
about variation; theory of knowledge; psychology.
"One need not be eminent in any part of profound knowledge in order to
understand it and apply it. The 14 points for management in industry, in
education, and government follow naturally as application of the system of
profound knowledge, for transformation for the present style of Western
management to one of optimization." (Deming 1993: 96)
Deming's view is that the outcome of any process is shaped by a system.
Leaders must understand and shape the systems that give body to their
organizations -- human systems, information systems, mechanical systems.
Through years of practice and experimentation, he developed the fourteen
points that make organizational systems effective:
"1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service,
with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide
jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western
management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities,
and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need
for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the
first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag.
Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one
item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to
improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease cost.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people
and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in
need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work productively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design,
sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of
production sand in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force asking
for defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create
adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low
performance belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work
force.
11. Eliminate work standards and quotas on the factory floor. Substitute
leadership. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by
numbers and numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
12. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of
workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer
numbers to quality. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in
engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, among other
things, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by
objective.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for
everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.
The transformation is everybody's job."
(Deming 1986: 23-24)
Deming views the organization as a system, but he is neither reductionist
nor instrumentalist. He sees the human beings who work in and comprise
organizations in human terms. His system rests on a solid ethical
foundation. Deming portrays human psychology in its fullest dimensions and
his understanding of needs can be compared with Maslow's Hierarchy of
Needs. This also involves the issues of trust and shared value that are
central to such current concepts as organizational learning.
The essential focus of Deming's world was a systemic approach in which
everyone in an organization shared knowledge and responsibility. Quality is
its outcome. The greater the mastery of profound knowledge, the more total
the quality outcome.
For greater depth, please refer to Deming's two major works:
Deming, W. Edwards. 1993. The New Economics for Industry, Government,
Education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Center for Advanced Engineering Study. ISBN 0-911379-05-3.
Deming, W. Edwards. 1986. Out of the Crisis. Quality, Productivity and
Competitive Position. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
0-521-30553-5.
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
Box 4676 Sofienberg, N-0506 Oslo
Norway
+47 22.98.51.07 Direct line
+47 22.98.51.11 Telefax
email:
ken.friedman@bi.no
Home and home office:
Ken Friedman
Byvagen 13
S-24012 Torna Hallestad
Sweden
+46 (46) 53.245 Telephone
+46 (46) 53.345 Telefax
email:
ken.friedman@bi.no