Deming Point #2: Adopt the New Philosophy

This month we continue the series on W. Edwards Deming’s 14 points for management to follow as covered in his book, Out of the Crisis.  Each of the points will be discussed in a separate article.

Point #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.”

After World War II, the style of management in the US was unchallenged because American goods owned world markets. But competition from other counties, namely Japan, eventually caused the US to lose its dominance.

What is the “new philosophy”? In his book, Deming explains:

“We can no longer tolerate commonly accepted levels of mistakes, defects, material not suited for the job, people on the job that do not know what the job is and are afraid to ask, handling damage, antiquated methods of training on the job, inadequate and ineffective supervision, management not rooted in the company, job hopping in management, buses and trains late or even cancelled because a driver failed to show up.”

If any organization wants to save and create jobs, and stay in business in the long run, nothing but perfect quality and service should ever be accepted. Nonetheless, every day I see examples of the old philosophy:

• Contractors who do not provide a work estimate when promised.
• “Sorry, our computers are slow today.”
• Ordering something off a restaurant menu, later to be told they are out of stock.
• Hotel rooms with slow drains.
• Waiting over 30 minutes past my appointment time for a doctor’s visit.
• Cancelled plane flight due to mechanical problems or “no crew”.

It only took me five minutes to think of these examples, and each one has happened to me multiple times over the years. Clearly, these issues are accepted, or they wouldn’t keep happening. Yet each has impacted who gets my business.

Have any of you ever had an appointment for some type of home repair or service and given a 4-hour window when the technician would arrive? If that seems like good service, consider this example Deming provides in his book about a friend who was given the following instructions in Japan to take a train to a company:

0903 Board the train. Pay no attention to trains at 0858, 0901.

0957 Off.

No further instruction necessary. What do you tolerate?

Next month: Point #3 – Cease dependence on mass inspection.

This article was previously published in the November, 2017 edition of VB Front Magazine. Mike Leigh is the President of OpX Solutions, LLC, a performance improvement company that specializes in helping organizations pursue operational excellence through leadership development and process improvement. Contact him at [email protected].