The Roadmap to Change
A Lost Video of Proctor & Gamble's Deming Training from 1985 Resurfaces
THE AIM for this newsletter is to share with you a video that I came across on John Hunter’s Curious Cat blog of his father, Dr. Bill Hunter, from a 2-day “Deming transformation” seminar Proctor & Gamble hosted for their leadership in 1985. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Hunter, he was an accomplished engineer, statistician, and teacher who was also a long-time friend and colleague to Dr. Deming. In Deming’s first book on his theory of management, Out of the Crisis, he credits Dr. Hunter and his students at the University of Wisconsin for helping him on difficult parts of the book, and also for his contribution for how the City of Madison, WI applied his teachings to improve their Motor Equipment Division. Dr. Hunter also co-authored with George Box (he of that famous expression about models…) the landmark book on Design of Experiments, Statistics for Experimenters, that is still considered an authoritative resource in the discipline.
In this talk, Dr. Hunter explores the importance of quality control in manufacturing and the role of leadership in driving continuous improvement, backed by examples from his experiences in Green Bay and at the University of Wisconsin. His theme is consistent with the Deming philosophy of the time: American companies need to become more focused on quality like the Japanese if they hope to remain competitive into the future.
The Agenda
Dr. Hunter’s talk is broken into four parts, however only the first three are covered in this video. I’ve compiled links to these below by timestamp for your convenience:
Bigger Picture (9:44)
Introduce Deming (23:57)
Quality Improvement as Driver (33:56)
Some Aspects of Deming’s Philosophy (n/a)
Notable Clips
Here are some interesting waypoints in Dr. Hunter’s talk that stood out to me:
Where Do We Make Our Money? (2:16)
Dr. Hunter shares his alarm over the decline of America’s manufacturing might and subsequent status as a debtor nation, “for the first time since WW I”.
Leadership Styles: Trains vs. Cars (4:24)
Dr. Hunter compares and contrasts US-style leadership as a train with the engine up front and everyone following behind, while Japanese is akin to a field of race cars where everyone participates as a driver. “Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Let’s go, let’s ALL contribute!”
A Roadmap for Change (6:12)
Dr. Hunter explains the clear articulation P&G leadership were providing on “where we are” and “where we want to go” but with one part missing: a roadmap, which Dr. Deming provides with his philosophy.
The Absolute State of American Quality vs. Japan (13:22)
Dr. Hunter relates the results of a study by Prof. David Garvin of Harvard Business School that compared defect rates and service calls between American and Japanese manufacturing companies. You can probably guess who fared better and by what magnitude.
An American, a Frenchman, and Japanese Are About to Face a Firing Squad (19:34)
Dr. Hunter tells a joke about American fatigue with always hearing about the success of Japanese manufacturing at the time.
AFL-CIO View on How to Improve Productivity: Let Workers Participate (20:41)
Dr. Hunter shares a letter from the AFL-CIO Region 3 Representative that was published in an article by Donald Scobel in HBR about his view on what he saw as the problem with productivity: the American style of management that doesn’t permit workers to meaningfully contribute to improving methods of production and quality of work.
Scobel summarized his findings over four years of surveying American workers and their disillusionment: “I want to contribute more than the organization will let me.”
Precisely what Dr. Deming was seeing and hearing everywhere at the time: more trains, fewer race cars.
Thanks Dr. Deming for Starting it All (24:08)
Dr. Hunter shares an advertisement that appeared in a Japanese paper from Sumitomo Metals thanking Dr. Deming for his contributions to helping them improve.
Dr. Hunter Goes to Singapore (26:46)
Dr. Hunter shares how he called Dr. Deming in 1969 to ask him how he was able to get the attention of Japanese leadership in the 1950s, as he was about to try the same thing in Singapore. Dr. Deming relates a surprising fact about how prepared he was for that situation…
Quality == Excellence (35:20)
Dr. Hunter compares and contrasts American and Japanese definitions of quality and quality control: former thinks QA, latter excellence throughout the organization: designs, processes, products, people, service - everything. Never-ending improvement.
Reflection Questions
See how many of the points Dr. Hunter raises in this talk have stood the test of time and are still relevant to how we think about leading and managing today. Were Dr. Hunter to jump through a time portal and deliver this talk at your organization, with updated references, what do you think the reaction would be? Are the problems he recounts still with us or did we resolve them? Has our economy improved or worsened? What have we learned in the almost forty years since?
Share your thoughts in the comments below.