WELCOME ONCE AGAIN to our weekly series, Doctor’s Orders, where you pose your questions about Dr. Deming’s management theory and philosophy, or anything Deming-related, and I do my best to find you the answers!
Today’s post will be a short as it is about one of those questions that should be entirely self-evident and easy to answer, yet is surprisingly not. I’ve done my best to answer it, but I find I’m not entirely satisfied.
It comes to us from Martin C. who asks:
Since you posted about Deming’s links to pragmatism and systems thinking I wanted to ask what you believe are the systems thinkers that influenced Deming?
For example he was a contemporary of Ludwig Von Bertalanffy but older than Russ Ackoff. So I’m wondering who would have been a greater influence?
Q6: Who influenced Deming’s view on systems?
Great question Martin! This is a meaty one, and for me it has to begin with this diagram from Deming’s forerunner to Out of the Crisis: Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position, showing us the nascent systems perspective of a manufacturing business:
This is the diagram Deming used to ignite the Japanese Miracle in August 1950: it tells us his thinking in systems was, at the age of 50, relatively well-formed, and pre-dates Bertalanffy’s 1954 founding of The Society for General Systems Research, which can be considered as the point of origin for what we know of as systems thinking today.
So, perhaps we need to look earlier to his mentor, Dr. Walter Shewhart.
The history here is quite clear: Deming met Shewhart in 1927 who transformed his thinking and world-view in three profound ways over the course of their close working relationship:
First, by Shewhart’s theory on causes of variation in a process and the two mistakes managers make in reaction;
Second, by Shewhart’s Statistical Process Control Chart for visualizing variation in a process to determine whether it was stable and under statistical control;
Third, by Shewhart’s theory of knowledge, inspired by C.I. Lewis’ The Mind and World Order, which would form the basis of the PDSA cycle (Trivia: Deming read that book over fourteen times before grasping its implications)
Note that Deming used the words process and system almost interchangeably, and I think this also originates with Shewhart’s influence in how he described sa proto-systems view of production, ie. “systems of unknown or chance causes” that were at play in mass production, itself. We can see this throughout Shewhart’s 1939 book, Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, for which Deming wrote the Foreword.
So, case-closed: it seems neither Bertalanffy nor Ackoff were competing influences for Deming’s view on systems, it was Shewhart all along. Well, maybe.
In re-reading John Willis’ recent book, Deming’s Journey to Profound Knowledge, I was reminded of an interesting passage he wrote about Bertalanffy:
Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, von Bertalanffy studied in the US with a theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago and then at a marine laboratory about seventy-five miles south of Boston before Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria in 1938. Despite attempts to stay in the US, he was forced to return, whereupon he promptly embraced Nazi ideology.§ Just before he left, however, he gave a lecture wherein the audience included one Russell Ackoff and a W. Edwards Deming, who was still teaching at the USDA Graduate School.
Willis, John. Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge (pp. 120-121). IT Revolution Press. Kindle Edition.
Interesting, no? The lecture Bertalanffy would have given at that time was probably about the nascent beginnings of his General Systems Theory that he’d go on to develop after the war, which emphasizes seeing the world as interconnected wholes rather than individual parts, with changes in one part affecting others, and how broadly this applies to living organisms and organizations — very in simpatico with Deming’s later thinking in the 1980s.
Now, this said, if an event was pivotal to his learning, Deming would write about it, as we see Shewhart mentioned in his books, and also about hearing Genichi Taguchi present his paper on the loss function in 1960, or Lloyd Nelson’s observations on “unknown and unknowable” consequences from disappointing or delighting a customer. We don’t have anything, that I’m aware of, which is similar about Bertalanffy, either from the lecture in 1938, his work after the war or founding The Society for General Systems Theory in 1954.
What of Ackoff, then? He warrants a mention in The New Economics, likely as a result of their meeting in the 1980s for an interview on systems thinking in education, in particular Ackoff’s allegory of an automobile made of all the best parts not working as a system because the parts wouldn’t fit. Ackoff did have some impact in helping refine Deming’s thinking in this regard.
So, going back to your question, who had the greater influence: Bertalanffy or Ackoff. I think the contest would actually go to Shewhart first, with later enhancements from Bertalanffy and Ackoff, among others, as he was developing his theory of management from the 14 Points to the System of Profound Knowledge. But it’s still a mystery for me when I consider the full arc from 1950 to 1980. It’s obvious systems thinking was an important part of his theory, but I’m not totally satisfied with my conclusion, here. More research needs to be done!
Thanks for this question, Martin! It was a fun rabbit hole to tumble down, and it’s given me a new mystery to unravel alongside a few others. I’m always learning something new. Let me know in the comments below whether I’m over the target with this answer for you!
Related Posts
The Parts Wouldn’t Fit (Aug 20/21)
What Do You Think?
Did I get it right? Are there details you think I’ve missed? History or factoids you know that could fill in the blanks? Let me know in the comments below or via our Chat thread for this AMA. And, as always, keep an eye out for a Chat link next week where you can post your questions for the next instalment!
Thanks Chris - appreciate you helping me with this rabbit hole!!!