Deming Devotional #2: On Tyranny and Profound Knowledge
An Escape Route from a Self-Imposed Prison
This book is for people who are living under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management. The huge, long-range losses caused by this style of management have led us into decline. Most people imagine that the present style of management has always existed, and is a fixture. Actually, it is a modern invention-a prison created by the way in which people interact. This interaction afflicts all aspects of our lives-government, industry, education, healthcare.
We have grown up in a climate of competition between people, teams, departments, divisions, pupils, schools, universities. We have been taught by economists that competition will solve our problems. Actually, competition, we see now, is destructive. It would be better if everyone would work together as a system, with the aim for everybody to win. What we need is cooperation and transformation to a new style of management.
The route to transformation is what I call Profound Knowledge. The system of profound knowledge is composed of four parts, all related to each other:
Appreciation for a system
Knowledge about variation
Theory of knowledge
Psychology
The aim of this book is to start the reader on the road to knowledge, and to create a yearning for more knowledge.
W. Edwards Deming. The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (Preface, p. i)
THE AIM for this post is to introduce the next in the series of curated and distilled excerpts from Dr. Deming’s books, lectures, and interviews to help shift your thinking and maybe that of select friends and colleagues, toward leading with a view to his theory of management. If you missed the first one, see here.
Today’s excerpt is from the preface to The New Economics, published almost a decade after Out of the Crisis. In the intervening time, Dr. Deming has conducted hundreds of his Four Day Seminars to thousands of attendees who came to learn what he taught the Japanese and refined over decades of consulting to top-management who would listen to him.
This is literally the reader’s first taste of what’s to come over the next 200 pages. Dr. Deming, in his early 90s when he wrote these words, tells us in no uncertain terms what we in the West are up against: a self-imposed, tyrannical prison that is dragging us backward, grounded in a near-religious belief in the power of adversarial competition over mutual “win-win” cooperation. His choice of words is mercilessly direct because he’s trying to shake us out of our stupor and doesn’t have time to waste.
He then beckons to us from a nearby exit, offering a way out, to break the spell by learning something he calls profound knowledge. His hand is outstretched to us… do we trust him?
How to Use
As I described in Devotional #1, begin by reading the excerpt over yourself, aloud if necessary, and reflecting on what Dr. Deming is conveying.
What words or phrases strike you the most? Which provoke a reaction in you? Do you agree? Why? Write them down, or print the passage out and annotate.
Consider how Deming describes our current situation in 1992-93: have things changed or remained the same? Is he right that we’re living under a tyranny brought about by our thinking about competition? Are we really in decline? What is limiting our ability to cooperate today? Do we really need to transform ourselves?
Consider the route to transformation he proposes to begin our escape: the System of Profound Knowledge. What do you think this means? Why would it be “profound”? What do you think each part means separately and together? Why do you think Dr. Deming chose these four specfically?
What other questions come to mind? Capture them for further thought and discussion.
Next, share this excerpt with a friend or colleague — perhaps the same one you introduced the first one to — and have them read and reflect on it. Ask the same questions in the first part and suggest they capture their own. Discuss together and share your learnings. Where do you align and depart? Why?
