Completing Day 6 of the 12 Days of Deming course and it’s difficult to not feel simultaneously optimistic and deflated. Deming’s 14 Points are investigated in Days 4 and 5, and while noble goals, these 14 points left me overwhelmed. “So THAT’S all you have to do in order to achieve the full potential of an organization. Those 14 things. Oh and by the way, the opposites of those 14 points are deeply ingrained in current management philosophy.” Off to the moon we go! I think I may have taken the study group a little aback when I made this comment in our, otherwise calm and collected, session. A lot has been said about incremental changes, and they certainly have their place, but the truth is, Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge and his vision of the New Economy are not easy. They’re not necessarily an incremental change program – they require leaps. Leaps in philosophy, honesty, trust, faith, and curiosity that don’t typically inhabit modern corporations. To learn more about the 14 points, see https://deming.org/explore/fourteen-points/ .
Now how often will someone take a leap if they have no real incentive to do so? I’m not likely to leap across a chasm unless I’m damn-well certain that there is something on the other side that I don’t currently have and that I desperately need. Japan is a good example of this after WWII – the morale of the people was so low that it was almost imperceptible, their economy was at rock bottom, and the US was kicking their butts in manufacturing. They had almost nothing to lose and almost everything to gain – that’s when taking a leap is easiest.
These days, our companies are likely doing “OK”. We’re not at rock bottom, things aren’t desperate. It’s very tempting to believe that keeping on the same way will forever produce the same “OK” results. Many companies have tried this strategy and disappeared seemingly overnight. However, their demise did not occur overnight, and chances are the leadership had plenty of warning signs and chose not to heed them in favour of hoping that the past results achieved by maintaining the status quo would prevail. Right now we need leaders and organizations to take their leaps before they’re desperate. In the current, forgiving economy, especially in software, it may not be obvious that your company has entered a death spiral. But the signs are there if you look for them. Take the leap before the gap widens to a canyon.
Shifting Lean 