The Little Blue Book

An Obscure Curated Collection of Dr. Deming's Quotes

The purpose of this book of quotations is neither to summarize Dr. Deming’s work nor to “popularize” his ideas by giving the reader a quick overview. This book does not give you the essence of Deming. Rather, the purpose of compiling these quotes is to stir your interest to learn more. Why does Deming advocate the end of merit pay? Why must managers understand terms like “statistical control” and “variation”? You won’t find complete answers here, just quotations for you to meditate on and to ponder.

The Little Blue Book. (p. 4)

THE AIM for this newsletter is to share with you a rather obscure bit of Deming esoterica that I first came across a couple of years ago while researching citations for quotes often misattributed to Dr. Deming. It’s called The Little Blue Book, a project to collect and curate notes that was started over thirty years ago by Richard Stockton Conger, a polisci undergrad at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. Within you will find over 70 passages, excerpts, and phrases of Deming’s organized into 30+ themes, largely drawn from four sources familiar to most aficionados and scholars, along with some that were captured from lectures and classrooms, but not cited.

The intent, as described by the anonymous editors of the document, was not to provide quick answers but to provoke curiosity and provide material to meditate and ponder.

Let’s take a closer look at the Second Edition that I found.

My Online Version

The original Little Blue Book lived on scribd.com and was passed around in print and electronic form over the years. I obtained a PDF (can’t recall where) and transcribed it into markdown that you can view on my github server here. I’ve also added the original source document that you can download.

Aim

Just before the introduction, we’re told the aim of The Little Blue Book is primarily to extend Deming’s ideas on statistics and the role of variation in management to educators and teachers. This is interesting, as only nine of the 70+ quotes deal with this topic, which might show how the book has evolved from the first edition.

Off to a Strange Start…

The astute reader may have already made a connection between this book and Mao’s Little Red Book, and it’s not just in name. The editors acknowledge some strange parallels between Mao and Deming with respect to shared aims in cultural revolutions (Deming’s in managment) and the study of each to apply their words in creative ways. However, they take pains to say this is where the similarities end, and hint that this book shouldn’t be used to put managers through struggle sessions to accept Deming’s philosophy of management…

It’s also interesting to note the choice of language the author and editors used to describe Deming’s words as “scripture” in the end notes, eg: “You are part of the transformation when you spread the scripture.” I think Dr. Deming himself would have a problem with this as it suggests his work was in a finished state, when in fact it was continually undergoing revision.

Notable Absences: 11 of 14 Points

Another curiosity is the deliberate decision, on the part of the editors, to only include passages concerning three of Deming’s 14 Points for Management, with the aim to whet the appetite to find out about the other 11 and the Seven Deadly Diseases.

No Bluefin Tuna Were Harmed in the Making of this Book

A third curiosity is the inclusion of an odd end-note by Stockton (?) about avoiding eating bluefin tuna and a call to politicians to ban its sale for ten years to allow stocks to recover. I’ll go out on a limb and say that he is demonstrating appreciation for a system here, but he makes no such claims.

Sources

All quotes fall under four main sources of attribution:

• Out of the Crisis and The New Economics, by Dr. Deming

• The World of W. Edwards Deming, by his long-time assistant, Cecelia Killian

• The Deming Management Method by Mary Walton

Around 40 quotes do not have direct attributions, and are cited as coming from lectures and “classroom situations”. This is a shame, because from an academic and historical perspective, context is everything.

Notable Quotables

If you’re looking for a source of some of Dr. Deming’s “greatest hits”, you won’t be disappointed, and perhaps even delighted to find alternative wordings from sources other than Out of the Crisis and The New Economics. You’ll also find references to favourite quotes from plays like Othello, Euripedes’ The Bacchae, and a Japanese poem about a bell.

Protectionism and Tariffs

Given the new economic era we’re entering is a lot like the one Deming saw in America over 40 years ago, now is a good time to revisit his thinking on tariffs and protectionism. I find the part about importing statisticians hilarious and on-brand…

Dependence on protection by tariffs and laws to “buy American” only encourages incompetence. [Out xi]

If some manufacturers in my own country would meet competition with effort and spend less time on lobbies to boost tariffs and to lower trade quotas, they might have less to worry about Japanese competition and could give some of the rest of us the benefit of better quality and lower prices. Many people say that they believe in free enterprise in competition, but what they often mean is competition for the other fellow, not for themselves. Now in my own case, I believe in free enterprise, and I am not afraid of Japanese statisticians, English statisticians, French statisticians, or any others. If one of them is doing a better job, then the thing to do is go over there, or bring him to my own country, and find out how he does it. I don’t know of any statistician’s lobby to try to keep out foreign statisticians. The more of them we import, the better off we are. [World 43–44]

Shewhart’s Influence

If you think that your ideas and thinking are going unnoticed, spare a thought for Dr. Deming’s mentor, Dr. Walter Shewhart:

Another half century may pass before the full spectrum of Dr. Shewhart’s contributions has been revealed in liberal education, science and industry. [World 53]

On Not Giving Advice

There’s an expression in my line of work to avoid giving advice at all costs because it doesn’t help the customer learn to solve problems on their own and can make you liable for when things go pear-shaped. Dr. Deming agrees:

Most statisticians can recall instances in which informal advice backfired. It is the same in any professional line. A statistician that tries to be a good fellow and give advice under adverse circumstances is in practice and has a client, whether he intended it or not; he will later on find himself accountable for the advice. [World 120]

Giving Blood

This one might surprise those new to Deming who may not appreciate how he saw his theory extend well outside of factory walls and corner offices, in particular how the use of rewards can lead to corruption of systems. In this passage, he relates how paying blood donors yields poorer quality plasma than those who give freely, and doctors’ preference for the latter. This aligns with his view of intrinsically-motivated coooperation:

There are two kinds of blood in the blood bank, good and bad. [My physician] Dr. Burchell used three units of good blood on me. Bad blood, he said, is a last resort. People like my friends and your friends can give good blood, and that is about the only source thereof. Blood from a regular donor that takes pay for it is almost dependably pretty well washed up, like the donor himself, if I understand Dr. Burchell correctly. In other words, good blood comes from friends and their friends. Money cannot buy it: it is not for sale. I may have garbled some of the medical language here, but Dr. Burchell’s point was very clear. He and other surgeons need good blood. Any type will do as replacement. In short, I owe three pints of good blood, and there is only one way to replace them. Money won’t do it. I had not appreciated these critical requirements. Maybe this plea will bring friends to offer blood. [World 142]

On Management

I think The New Economics should come with a diagram illustrating a map like you’d find in a mall with a “you are here” dot and then exits to Deming’s view on management. Here’s how he described his theory:

My theory of management says that every person gains when the system is optimized.

Most people think of management as a chain of command. My theory says that the system is like an orchestra, not an army. Every one in an orchestra supports the other players. Each player watches not only the conductor, but also each other and the whole system. The system needs a conductor, not a general. It needs someone who harmonizes the talents and abilities of each part of the system. Each player in the orchestra knows that he is part of a system, even when he plays solo. He is not there to attract attention to himself. He succeeds when he supports the other players.

On Fear

I still hear from past customers how fear is used liberally in their organizations as a stimulant to induce certain behaviours and inhibit others. Dr. Deming saw this as a cancerous practice that needed to be driven out so that improvement opportunities could be acted upon. We are a long way off from this ever happening, it seems:

Fear takes a horrible toll. Fear is all around, robbing people of their pride, hurting them, robbing them of a chance to contribute to the company. It is unbelievable what happens when you unloose fear. [Method 73]

On Education

I recently heard from a past customer how their senior leadership made signing up for courses an exercise in running a justification gauntlet that few survive. It is an ordeal to improve oneself, and there’s even a clause in their contracts requiring employees to pay back fees should they quit within six months of completing their coursework. For Dr. Deming, education and self-improvement was integral to improving the system:

I find a general fear of education. People are afraid to take a course. It might not be the right one. My advice is take it. Find the right one later... You never know what could be used, what could be needed. He that thinks he has to be practical is not going to be here very long. Who knows what is practical? Help people to improve. I mean everybody. [Method 84]

Use Cases and Reflection Questions

The Little Blue Book is an interesting product of its time and of its creator and subsequent editors. I think it succeeds in its aim to provoke curiosity in the reader, especially with the attributions and easy-to-understand categories, and I could see it used as a conversation starter in a workshop, say in a Lean Coffee discussion, or as part of an ongoing series of coaching sessions with managers and senior leadership.

I found quotes inside that pique my curiosity to source for better understanding into the context they were made, although they may be lost to time by now.

How would you use The Little Blue Book? Do you think it could have been better-named? What quotes resonate most with you? Why? Who would you share your favourite quotes with? What kind of challenges do you think they could help to reframe and think differently about?

If you were to create your own Little Blue Book, how would you aim it? What quotes would you include?

As always, drop a line in the comments below!