Profound Podcast

An Accidental Discovery of Significant Proportions

Lead With Humility

Humility is an enabling principle that precedes learning and improvement.  A manager must be willing to seek input, listen carefully, and continuously learn.  He (or she) does not know it all and readily admits that.  In an environment where the manager leads with humility, people feel respected and energized and will more likely give freely of their creative abilities.

Dr. Deming saw this when he worked with Japanese leadership beginning in the 1950s.  He saw that a Japanese man was never too old to learn.  He learned something new from everyone, and this is how Dr. Deming made you feel when he spoke with you one on one.  He was learning from you, not the other way around.  At the end of each day he would retrieve scraps of paper from his pockets.  On the paper were notes he had taken during the day, things he had learned.  I once heard him exclaim, “look at all that I have learned today!”

Stocklein, Mike. Lead With Humility, Respect Every Individual. (October 18, 2011)

THE AIM for today’s post is to draw your attention to an intriguing little podcast I tripped over the other day quite by accident and I do not know how it escaped my attention until then. It is called Profound: Dr. Deming Podcast and is hosted by John Willis, a well-known author and figure in the devops world for many years who is currently the Senior Director, Global Transformation Office for Red Hat. If you are in devops, you are probably familiar with John’s books and collaboration with Gene Kim (he of The Phoenix Project book fame) on the Beyond the Phoenix Project discussions which go into some of the philosophies behind devops, from Deming to Goldratt and, of course, beyond.

You can find the podcast on Apple and Spotify (applets below).

What to Expect

John launched his podcast on April 27, 2021 and has put out thirty-eight (!) episodes so far wherein he has a thirty to forty minute conversation with an interesting guest about what they do and how they’ve integrated Deming’s philosophy into their work, or what influences or stories they have about Deming.

These are decidedly not highly-polished and produced shows but rather sit-down conversations that have a direction and some topical questions to guide them, leaving enough room for both John and his guests to roam. This provides opportunities for picking up little gems of knowledge or trivia (something I really enjoy in these kinds of podcasts) that are scattered throughout.

On balance, John does mostly talk to industry folks, but there are some really fun and surprising guests like Doris Quinn who aided and traveled with Dr. Deming after he became quite interested in her application of his style of thinking and management with tribal people in Papua New Guinea - fascinating story. His first show with Ben Rockwood, formerly of Equinix, now MONDOO, about Deming’s influence in devops is quite interesting, too; ditto the pioneers of lean in software development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, and John Hunter of the Curious Cat Deming blog fame.

While the conversations can ramble a bit, there’s a point to them that gets revealed as you progress and you see that what’s discussed is applied, as Dr. Deming would intend, to life - not just work.

Why I Like This Podcast

I like this podcast because John is obviously passionate about Dr. Deming’s life and work and it shows in his wide-ranging knowledge. He knows his material and is able to discuss it critically with his guests in a way that reinforces the fundamentals while revealing some new and interesting insights. He also shows great humility in his understanding and leadership, often re-centring himself as a continual learner in his discussions.

When Deming was alive, he’d urge others to help him push the boundaries of learning about the philosophy on leadership and management he was uncovering by authoring their own papers and books, to communicate their own understanding and lingering questions about his theories. John’s podcast is very much in this tradition and it’s really gratifying to know it exists and can be heard by so many people.

Give it a listen and see what you think!