Appreciate that, thanks, and I'm happy to share it.
Deming was a fascinating guy. His ideas (mostly applicable to factories but easily applied to all companies) helped bring Japan out of its post-war recession and give it the respected reputation for high-quality goods they have had for some time. His concepts have been largely ignored since (partly due to his horribly dry writing style) but I think they're very valuable to our current economic situation in the west as well.
The focus is on quality, and the path is through process-based management. You have to realize your employees are a system just like your software is: mostly understandable, and statistically predictable. You can shape your system of people just like you can a manufacturing line, and traditional beliefs about punishments and rewards simply do not apply if you look at what's truly effective in improving quality and improving production.
It was remarkably successful in Japan partly because their philosophical backgrounds are so completely different: it is easier for someone brought up with ideas of Zen buddhism or other eastern religions to think of the whole rather than the individual; the process rather than the part.
In the US, where we're very much an individual and self-focused society, we track immediately to individual motivation without thought to how it affects the whole company. The unsubstantiated belief that "what's best for the individual is best for the whole" is embedded in us and very difficult to shake. Indeed, it's fairly core to our democracy and has ties to political beliefs as well. Deming himself had the breaking of this habit as one of his prerequisites (his System of Profound Knowledge): that everyone in the entire company must understand this holistic way of thinking, not just the management. Surely there is a balance to be struck, but Deming covers that as well, focusing on the psychology of personal motivation and work quality rather than belief systems. And it's all backed up by great process engineering and experience.
Honestly I think it's better if you completely ignore the monetary rewards and simply focus on what makes people work the best; the process of work. Here's another great TED talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Comments
Appreciate that, thanks, and I'm happy to share it.
Deming was a fascinating guy. His ideas (mostly applicable to factories but easily applied to all companies) helped bring Japan out of its post-war recession and give it the respected reputation for high-quality goods they have had for some time. His concepts have been largely ignored since (partly due to his horribly dry writing style) but I think they're very valuable to our current economic situation in the west as well.
The focus is on quality, and the path is through process-based management. You have to realize your employees are a system just like your software is: mostly understandable, and statistically predictable. You can shape your system of people just like you can a manufacturing line, and traditional beliefs about punishments and rewards simply do not apply if you look at what's truly effective in improving quality and improving production.
It was remarkably successful in Japan partly because their philosophical backgrounds are so completely different: it is easier for someone brought up with ideas of Zen buddhism or other eastern religions to think of the whole rather than the individual; the process rather than the part.
In the US, where we're very much an individual and self-focused society, we track immediately to individual motivation without thought to how it affects the whole company. The unsubstantiated belief that "what's best for the individual is best for the whole" is embedded in us and very difficult to shake. Indeed, it's fairly core to our democracy and has ties to political beliefs as well. Deming himself had the breaking of this habit as one of his prerequisites (his System of Profound Knowledge): that everyone in the entire company must understand this holistic way of thinking, not just the management. Surely there is a balance to be struck, but Deming covers that as well, focusing on the psychology of personal motivation and work quality rather than belief systems. And it's all backed up by great process engineering and experience.
Honestly I think it's better if you completely ignore the monetary rewards and simply focus on what makes people work the best; the process of work. Here's another great TED talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html