A short post to share with you a little side-quest I’ve been tinkering with on-and-off for a while to map the intellectual/philosophical influences behind Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. I was motivated to pick this up again after reading a couple of essays by a new-to-Deming business/tech writer about their impressions and struggles with the philosophy. In the essays, they reference some fantastic excerpts from Dr. Ed Baker’s book on Deming, The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, about the origins of Deming’s management theory:
Deming’s criterion of knowledge is whether it helps us to predict and not whether we discover truth, because there is no such thing in the domain of empirical knowledge. In the empirical world, statements are only probable rather than true and absolute. If we can predict, then we have knowledge. We could have a beautifully constructed theory that has little or no relevance to the real problems that people face. Euclidean geometry, Plato’s forms, the normal curve, and other examples of abstract reasoning are true in their own world of mind, regardless of whether they apply to the empirical world. A theory that is internally consistent (i.e., true in its own world) has construct validity but may not have predictive validity. We learn about the ability of a theory to help us in predicting by structuring our predictions to be testable by empirical investigation. A theory is evaluated by future experience, whether in science, in management, or in everyday living. Theories can be revised as learning occurs, and as evidence accrues, we increase or decrease our degree of belief in their ability to help us predict.
Edward Martin Baker. The Symphony of Profound Knowledge: W. Edwards Deming’S Score for Leading, Performing, and Living in Concert . iUniverse. Kindle Edition.
In The New Economics, Deming introduces the domain of Theory of Knowledge of the System of Profound Knowledge with a pithy sentence and a footnote:
The author he cheekily credits, C.I. Lewis, was an American philosopher who founded the conceptual pragmatism school of philosophy which explored the ways we build our understanding of the world through our senses and continually-updated conceptual mental models.
For example, forming an idea in your head about the best route to the grocery store, then updating it as you navigate the route in real-time according to traffic conditions, construction, etc. In business, it’s in how managers blend quantitative data and qualitative judgment to make strategic decisions based on predicted outcomes, then adjust as new data becomes available.
But who or what influenced Lewis? I knew that empiricism and pragmatism played a part, but I didn’t have a good enough mental map of my own, so I began to plot one, illustrating the relationships between key thinkers and their schools of thought.
Suffice to say, Deming is the intellectual heir of traditions of thought extending all the way back to René Descartes and John Locke. When he would ask, “How? By what method? How will we know?” he was echoing questions that have been at the core of philosophy for hundreds of years. And in incorporating the Theory of Knowledge into the System of Profound Knowledge, he was packaging this to make it user-friendly for managers to apply right away by making predictions with the aid of good theory, eg. PDSA loops.
Anyhow, you can check out my map on Miro here - there’s also a timeline of systems thinkers that I created for a coaching customer a while ago that you can explore. It’s all a work-on-progress, and I’m adding and paring away for clarity as I go. My aim is to improve my own understanding and provide a tool for others to understand pedigrees of ideas they may hold and provoke their curiosity to learn more.
PS: Reminder to submit your questions for Friday’s Doctor’s Orders #4 via the Chat thread or however you’d like to reach me.