Book Review: Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge

A Thoroughly Engaging Book About The Life and Times of Dr. W.E. Deming and the Influences that Shaped His Landmark Theory

Sometimes there's a man. I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? Sometimes there's a man, and I'm talkin' about the dude here, sometimes there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there, and that's The Dude.

- The Stranger’s opening monologue to The Big Lebowski (1998)

While his story is fascinating by itself, this book isn’t strictly about his life. Rather, it’s the story of the gift he gave the world: a way of thinking that can be applied to any facet of life or work…

Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge is about learning how to bring about profound change on your own. That’s why, even three decades after his death, we’re still using his teachings as we head into the unknowns of the future.

- John Willis, from the Introduction. (p. 31)

For Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge was the vehicle; cooperation and management transformation were the destination.

- Ibid. (p. 164)

You have heard the words; you must find the way. It will never be perfect. Perfection is not for this world; it is for some other world. I hope what you have heard here today will haunt you for the rest of your life. Then I have done my best.

- Dr. W.E. Deming, Newport Beach Deming Management Seminar, February 24-28, 1986

THE AIM of this post is to provide a review of John Willis’ new book, Deming’s Profound Journey: How Deming Helped Win a War, Altered the Face of Industry, and Holds the Key to Our Future, now available on Amazon in all formats including as an Audible audio book. This is a book I’ve been keen to read ever since John hinted at its release a year ago and even more so after his audiobook teaser that came out in February. I’ve now had the opportunity to read it twice over, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Buckle-up fearless learner: this book isn’t a dry recital of dates and events but a breathtaking, wild ride through time tracing and pulling together all the threads that would contribute to shaping Dr. Deming’s theory for the System of Profound Knowledge and how what he uncovered is still influencing our world thirty years after his passing.

tl;dr

With Deming’s Profound Journey, John Willis set out to write a different kind of book about Dr. W.E. Deming, one that would set itself apart by telling his story through the events that would influence the development of the four domains of his magnum opus, The System of Profound Knowledge. Written in the style of Steven Spear’s The High Velocity Edge, it reads like a documentary with Willis as your personal Mr. Peabody who invites you to journey with him in his Wayback Machine through time visiting post-Independence America, feudal Japan, the American midwest of the early 1900s, WWII America, post-war Japan, post-OPEC crisis America, Papua New Guinea, and on to the modern world of high finance and cybersecurity in today’s digital economy to reveal the threads and serendipities behind Deming’s philosophy that would contribute to the Japanese Miracle, Lean, Agile, DevOps, and more.

In this regard, Willis has succeeded in his mission weaving threads from multiple touchstone sources and references along with his own experiences as a software developer, author, and consultant into a compelling narrative that I found difficult to put down. It will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about who Dr. Deming was and what informed his thinking. This is a definite must-have book.

Who is John Willis?

For the unfamiliar outside of the software world, John Willis is software developer, executive, and successful author who has contributed to the DevOps movement which is aimed at bringing together the “front of house” and “back of house” for software delivery in organizations. He is probably best-known for co-authoring Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps and The DevOps Handbook with Gene Kim, and has for the past few years hosted a successful podcast about Deming called Profound, which some readers will recall from my March 14/22 newsletter. He is also a Deming researcher with some ten years’ experience, making him uniquely qualified to write this book.

What is the AIM?

John set out to write Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge with a clear AIM to not add to the existing catalog of biographies, and instead to focus on connecting the specific events and inspirations over Deming’s long lifetime to the development of his premier management theory, The System of Profound Knowledge, and its enduring influence across many industries almost thirty years after his passing. In particular, John wants to make you aware of just how much “Deming under the hood” there is in how modern high-tech companies operate today.

Who is the intended audience?

John has written this book in such a way as to make it accessible to anyone regardless of their prior knowledge of Dr. Deming or his management theory. It will be particularly interesting to anyone who is currently studying Deming in classic form such as The New Economics or Out of the Crisis, or in more modern books like John Dues’ Win-Win which came out earlier this year.

How is the book structured?

John has thoughtfully curated the reader’s journey across 19 meticulously-footnoted chapters logically grouped into four parts. It might seem a daunting read, but each chapter can be read in around 10-15 minutes making the 290-odd pages just fly by.

Part I: FOUNDATIONS OF PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE

1. Humble Origins & Non-Determinism

2. The Jungle in Paradise

3. The Birth of Quality Control & Standardization

4. The Root of All Evil

5. Pragmatist

Part II: APPLICATIONS OF PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE

6. Dr. Deming Goes to Washington

7. Rosie & World War II

8. CLASSIFIED

Part III: INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE

9. Samurai Statistics

10. JUSE & the Gentle Giant

11. The Butterfly Effect

12. Made in Japan

13. Rising Sun, Falling Eagle

14. Demingmania

15. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

Part IV: THE NEXT GENERATION OF PROFOUND KNOWLEDGE

16. The Digital Cambrian Explosions

17. What Would Deming Do?

18. Deming’s Dark Legacy

19. Out of the Cyber Crisis

What will you learn by reading it?

So, so much. John has gathered up the dozens of threads through time that wove together at just the right moments to begin to influence Deming’s theory of management: an almost improbable series of coincidences and serendipities that would all play a part in his intellectual journey of discovering how the seemingly disparate pieces fit together. He was quintessentially the right man of his time to stand astride certain events in history and make sense of what he learned.

For example:

• How the discoveries in physics led by Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Planck, Curie, and Schrodinger would usher in a revolution in non-determinism right at the time Deming earned his PhD, shaping his world-view for appreciating a system, which would be cemented during his time at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during the war, brought about through his friendship with Dr. Shewhart;

• How his decision to take a job with the Fixed Nitrogen Research Lab would lead to his coincidental meeting of Dr. Shewhart, who was an old flatmate of his boss, that led directly to learning about the variation systems exhibit and a theory of knowledge based on the scientific method;

• How his interning at the famed Hawthorne Works plant in the mid 1920s would prepare his understanding of how systems affect human psychology, which would come to the fore while he was working in post-war Japan, reinforcing and expanding his thinking on the primacy of cooperation and teamwork.

Using a narrative style reminiscent of Steven Spear’s The High Velocity Edge, John curates a wild, Quentin Tarantino-esque journey through history to teach you about the significant events that culminated to provide the platform Deming would stand upon to usher in the Japanese Miracle and eventually his belated renaissance at home in America. Some of the stopovers include:

• Frontier America in 1896 where you’ll meet Col. William Frederick Buffalo Bill “Cody” and his connection with a young Deming in Wyoming;

• Pre-civil war America and the work of Eli Whitney to create rifles with standardized parts;

• Back to the time of Thucydides and his recounting of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC and the role the Plataeans would play in developing some of the first standards;

• On to feudal Japan and the Samurais who tracked statistics well before they were fashionable - and which would be ironically discarded during WWII, only to be revived again prior to Deming’s arrival;

• The birth of Toyota from their work with looms to automobiles;

• Forward to the Macy Conferences of 1941 and the dawn of cybernetics;

• Alight during the post-OPEC crisis America and the beginning of Deming’s rediscovery by the top leaders of American automotive industry;

• Then race to the the birth of DevOps in the late 2000s and the stunning failure of Knight Capital in 2012.

You’ll also gain a deep appreciation for how Deming’s symphony of profound knowledge (hat tip to the title of Dr. Ed Baker’s book) would come to make music well after his passing, influencing the world of high tech and software development with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, Lean Software Development (as pioneered by Mary and Tom Poppendieck), Eric Ries’ Lean Startup methodology in 2010, and John’s wheelhouse in DevOps with Gene Kim and many others.

What surprised me most?

Initially, I was a little taken aback by John’s referencing of Dr. Deming as “Ed”, a familiarity that was usually reserved for his close friends, as I understood it from reading Dr. Baker’s book about him. I was also surprised to learn about the extent of Deming’s generosity and how he’d routinely give significant sums to pay the tuitions of grad students, as retold by his aide, Doris Quinn.

What did I enjoy most?

I’ve read many of the same books as John and found his to reflect this in how entertaining, engaging, informative, and an overall pleasure it was to read. I’ve re-read it three times over to prepare this review and with a few exceptions enjoyed it thoroughly. I really appreciate the thorough research that he put into it, his use of witty quotes and observations, and the modern perspective he provides on what could have otherwise been a dull read for contemporary readers who are unfamiliar with Dr. Deming and why he’s still relevant today. As a former software developer, I especially appreciated John’s connecting-the-dots from Deming to Agile, Lean, and DevOps.

What did I learn?

John revealed some gaps in my knowledge about the antecedent influences American philosopher C.S. Peirce had with his development of pragmatism in the 1870s, an early forerunner of the theory of knowledge which would inform another American philosopher, C.I. Lewis who in turn would influence Shewhart and later Deming. I also enjoyed learning about the astronomical connection between astronomers counting stars and standard deviation calculations, and that Deming described the opposite of Management by Objectives as Management by Means (MBM).

What were my favourite chapters?

As a theory of variation junkie, I appreciated Chapter 4: The Root of All Evil, that tells the story of Dr. Shewhart’s groundbreaking work developing new statistical techniques to measure how processes perform and the two types of causes. I also enjoyed learning the story of Shewhart’s lesser-known and mysterious Japanese counterpart, Ken’ichi Koyangi, in Chapter 10: JUSE & the Gentle Giant, as well as the unlikely and heartbreaking story of Doris Quinn in Chapter 15: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Quinn, a nurse and missionary, came to be Deming’s aide when he was in his late 80s after meeting him at one of his seminars. Their friendship and collegial relationship would last right up until the end, when he became to ill to travel. I first learned of Doris from John’s April 26/21 Profound Podcast, Ep. 3.

What quibbles do I have?

Almost none. I think the only thing I’d liked to have learned more about was Dr. Deming’s development of the Red Bead Experiment as I have outstanding questions about it that no one has really touched on, yet - at least as far as I have been able to learn.

Edit: One additional quibble that I forgot to include at the time I published this post is the title of Chapter 18, “Deming’s Dark Legacy”, which doesn’t have anything to do with the actual contents which are about cybersecurity breaches that resulted from not having a Deming mindset, and how others were prevented by thinking systemically and applying the theories of Deming and Goldratt. It’s still a good chapter, however!

NB: There are some minor typos and errors which will be addressed in an upcoming errata.

Complementary Reading

Two books come to mind:

• As previously mentioned above, Steven Spear’s The High Velocity Edge, tells a similar romp-through-time story about organizations and companies that have out-competed their peers with counter-intuitive strategies and ideas that buck the prevailing style of management. It’s quite obvious John was very influenced by Spear!

• Kenneth Delavigne’s and Dan Robertson’s book, Deming’s Profound Changes goes into detail about the changes in scientific and management thinking that would influence Deming’s theory, which John touches on as well. Be prepared to have your preconceived notions about Taylor challenged, however…

Conclusion: Get this book!

John Willis set out to write a new and unique book about Dr. Deming that would tell the story of how his capstone theory, the System of Profound Knowledge, came to be and how long a shadow Deming cast into our modern era. In this regard, I think he has succeeded and then some. Regardless of whether you’re a die-hard Deming fan or neophyte who is just cracking the spine of The New Economics or Out of the Crisis, I think you will enjoy the well-crafted story John Willis tells in Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge. It is simply a must-have for your bookshelf and for gifting to those who want to know who this Deming guy was and why he’s so important.

Get your copy on Amazon.