Podcast appearances and mentions of Jane Norman

Join host Andrew Stotz for a lively conversation with Cliff Norman and Dave Williams, two of the authors of "Quality as an Organizational Strategy." They share stories of Dr. Deming, insights from working with businesses over the years, and the five activities the book is based on. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, we have a fantastic opportunity to learn more about a recent book that's been published called "Quality as an Organizational Strategy". And I'd like to welcome Cliff Norman and Dave Williams on the show, two of the three authors. Welcome, guys.   0:00:27.1 Cliff Norman: Thank you. Glad to be here.   0:00:29.4 Dave Williams: Yeah, thanks for having us.   0:00:31.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I've been looking forward to this for a while. I was on LinkedIn originally, and somebody posted it. I don't remember who, the book came out. And I immediately ordered it because I thought to myself, wait, wait, wait a minute. This plugs a gap. And I just wanna start off by going back to Dr. Deming's first Point, which was create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service with the aim to become competitive and stay in business and to provide jobs. And all along, as anybody that learned the 14 Points, they knew that this was the concept of the strategy is to continue to improve the product and service in the eyes of the client and in your business. But there was a lot missing. And I felt like your book has started really to fill that gap. So maybe I'll ask Cliff, if you could just explain kind of where does this book come from and why are you bringing it out now?   0:01:34.5 Cliff Norman: That's a really good question, Andrew. The book was originally for the use of both our clients only. So it came into being, the ideas came out of the Deming four day seminar where Dr. Tom Nolan, Ron Moen and Lloyd Provost, Jerry Langley would be working with Dr. Deming. And then at the end of four days, the people who some of who are our clients would come up to us and said, he gave us the theory, but we don't have any methods. And so they took it very seriously and took Dr. Deming's idea of production viewed as a system. And from that, they developed the methods that we're going to discuss called the five activities. And all of our work with this was completely behind the wall of our clients. We didn't advertise. So the only people who became clients were people who would seek us out. So this has been behind the stage since about 1990. And the reason to bring it out now is to make it available beyond our client base. And Dave, I want you to go ahead and add to that because you're the ones that insisted that this get done. So add to that if you would.   [laughter]   0:02:53.0 Dave Williams: Well, thanks, Cliff. Actually, I often joke at Cliff. So one thing to know, Cliff and Lloyd and I all had a home base of Austin, Texas. And I met them about 15 years ago when I was in my own journey of, I had been a chief quality officer of an ambulance system and was interested in much of the work that API, Associates of Process Improvement, had been doing with folks in the healthcare sector. And I reached out to Cliff and Lloyd because they were in Austin and they were kind enough, as they have been over many years, to welcome me to have coffee and talk about what I was trying to learn and where my interests were and to learn from their work. And over the last 15 years, I've had a great benefit of learning from the experience and methods that API has been using with organizations around the world, built on the shoulders of the theories from Dr. Deming. And one of those that was in the Improvement Guide, one of the foundational texts that we use a lot in improvement project work that API wrote was, if you go into the back, there is a chapter, and Cliff, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's chapter 13 in this current edition on creating value.   0:04:34.3 Dave Williams: In there, there was some description of kind of a structure or a system of activities that would be used to pursue qualities and organizational strategy. I later learned that this was built on a guide that was used that had been sort of semi self-published to be able to use with clients. And the more that I dove into it, the more that I really valued the way in which it had been framed, but also how, as you mentioned at the start, it provided methods in a place where I felt like there was a gap in what I saw in organizations that I was working with or that I had been involved in. And so back in 2020, when things were shut down initially during the beginning of the pandemic, I approached Lloyd and Cliff and I said, I'd love to help in any way that I can to try to bring this work forward and modernize it. And I say modernize it, not necessarily in terms of changing it, but updating the material from its last update into today's context and examples and make it available for folks through traditional bookstores and other venues.   0:05:58.9 Andrew Stotz: And I have that The Improvement Guide, which is also a very impressive book that helps us to think about how are we improving. And as you said, the, that chapter that you were talking about, 13, I believe it was, yeah, making the improvement of value a business strategy and talking about that. So, Cliff, could you just go back in time for those people that don't know you in the Deming world, I'm sure most people do, but for those people that don't know, maybe you could just talk about your first interactions with Dr. Deming and the teachings of that and what sparked your interest and also what made you think, okay, I wanna keep expanding on this.   0:06:40.0 Cliff Norman: Yeah. So I was raised in Southern California and of course, like many others, I'm rather horrified by what's going on out there right now with fires. That's an area I was raised in. And so I moved to Texas in '79, went to work for Halliburton. And they had an NBC White Paper called, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?", and our CEO, Mr. Purvis Thrash, he saw that. And I was working in the quality area at that time. And he asked me to go to one of Deming's seminars that was held in Crystal City, actually February of 1982. And I got down there early and got a place up front. And they sent along with me an RD manager to keep an eye on me, 'cause I was newly from California into Texas. And so anyway, we're both sitting there. And so I forgot something. So I ran up stairs in the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel there. And I was coming down and lo and behold, next floor down, Dr. Deming gets on and two ladies are holding him up. And they get in the elevator there and he sees this George Washington University badge and he kind of comes over, even while the elevator was going down and picks it up and looks it up real close to his face. And then he just backs up and leans, holds onto the railing and he says, Mr. Norman, what I'm getting ready to tell you today will haunt you for the rest of your life.   0:08:11.8 Cliff Norman: And that came true. And of course, I was 29 at the time and was a certified quality engineer and knew all things about the science of quality. And I couldn't imagine what he would tell me that would haunt me for the rest of my life, but it did. And then the next thing he told me, he said, as young as you are, if you're not learning from somebody that you're working for, you ought to think about getting a new boss. And that's some of the best advice I've ever gotten. I mean, the hanging around smart people is a great thing to do. And I've been gifted with that with API. And so that's how I met him. And then, of course, when I joined API, I ended up going to several seminars to support Lloyd Provost and Tom Nolan and Ron Moen and Jerry as the various seminars were given. And Ron Moen, who unfortunately passed away about three years ago, he did 88 of those four day seminars, and he was just like a walking encyclopedia for me. So anytime I had questions on Deming, I could just, he's a phone call away, and I truly miss that right now.   0:09:20.5 Cliff Norman: So when Dave has questions or where this reference come from or whatever, and I got to go do a lot of work, where Ron, he could just recall that for me. So I miss that desperately, but we were busy at that time, by the time I joined API was in '88. And right away, I was introduced to what they had drafted out in terms of the five activities, which is the foundation of the book, along with understanding the science of improvement and the chain reaction that Dr. Deming introduced us to. So the science of improvement is what Dr. Deming called the System of Profound Knowledge. So I was already introduced to all that and was applying that within Halliburton. But QBS, as we called it then, Qualities of Business Strategy was brand new. I mean, it was hot off the press. And right away, I took it and started working with my clients with it. And we were literally walking on the bridge as we were building it. And the lady I'm married to right now, Jane Norman, she was working at Conagra, which is like a $15 billion poultry company that's part of Conagra overall, which is most of the food in your grocery store, about 75% of it. And she did one of the first system linkages that we ever did.   0:10:44.5 Cliff Norman: And since then, she's worked at like four other companies as a VP or COO, and has always applied these ideas. And so a lot of this in the book examples and so forth, comes from her actual application work. And when we'd worked together, she had often introduced me, this is my husband, Cliff, he and his partners, they write books, but some of us actually have to go to work. And then eventually she wrote a book with me with Dr. Maccabee, who is also very closely associated with Dr. Deming. So now she's a co-author. So I was hoping that would stop that, but again, we depend on her for a lot of the examples and contributions and the rest of it that show up in the book. So I hope that answers your question.   0:11:28.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and for people like myself and some of our listeners who have heard Dr. Deming speak and really gotten into his teachings, it makes sense, this is going to haunt you because I always say that, what I read originally... I was 24 when I went to my first Deming seminar. And I went to two two-day seminars and it... My brain was open, I was ready, I didn't have anything really in it about, any fixed methods or anything. So, for me, it just blew my mind, some of the things that he was talking about, like thinking about things in a system I didn't think about that I thought that the way we got to do is narrow things down and get this really tight focus and many other things that I heard. And also as a young, young guy, I was in this room with, I don't know, 500 older gentlemen and ladies, and I sat in the front row and so I would see him kind of call them on the carpet and I would be looking back like, oh, wow, I never saw anybody talk to senior management like that and I was kind of surprised. But for those people that really haven't had any of that experience they're new to Deming, what is it that haunts you? What is... Can you describe what he meant when he was saying that?   0:12:42.9 Cliff Norman: I gotta just add to what you just said because it's such a profound experience. And when you're 29, if most of us, we think we're pretty good shape by that time, the brain's fully developed by age 25, judgment being the last function that develops. And so you're pretty well on your way and then to walk in and have somebody who's 81 years old, start introducing you to things you've never even thought about. The idea of the Chain Reaction that what I was taught as a certified quality engineer through ASQ is I need to do enough inspection, but I didn't need to do too much 'cause I didn't want to raise costs too much. And Dr. Deming brought me up on stage and he said, well, show me that card again. So I had a 105D card, it's up to G now or something. And he said, "well, how does this work?" And I said, "well, it tells me how many samples I got to get." And he says, "you know who invented that." And I said, "no, sir, I thought God did." He said, "no, I know the people that did it. They did it to put people like you out of business. Sit down, young man, you've got a lot to learn." And I thought, wow, and here you are in front of 500 people and this is a public flogging by any stretch.   0:13:56.1 Cliff Norman: And it just went on from there. And so a few years later, I'm up in Valley Forge and I'm working at a class with Lloyd and Tom Nolan and a guy named, I never met before named Jim Imboden. And he's just knock-down brilliant, but they're all working at General Motors at that time. And a lot of the book "Planned Experimentation" came out of their work at Ford and GM and Pontiac and the rest of it. And I mean, it's just an amazing contribution, but I go to dinner with Jim that night. And Jim looks at me across the table and he says, Cliff, how did you feel the day you found out you didn't know anything about business economics or anything else? I said, "you mean the first day of the Deming seminar?" He said, "that's what I'm talking about." And that just... That's how profound that experience is. Because all of a sudden you find out you can improve quality and lower costs at the same time. I'm sorry, most people weren't taught that. They certainly weren't taught that in business school. And so it was a whole transformation in thinking and just the idea of a system. Most of what's going on in the system is related to the system and the way it's constructed. And unfortunately, for most organizations, it's hidden.   0:15:04.2 Cliff Norman: They don't even see it. So when things happen, the first thing that happens is the blame flame. I had a VP I worked for and he'd pulled out his org chart when something went bad and he'd circle. He said, this is old Earl's bailiwick right here. So Cliff, go over and see Earl and I want you to straighten him out. Well, that's how most of it runs. And so the blame flame just takes off. And if you pull the systems map out there and if he had to circle where it showed up, he'd see there were a lot of friends around that that were contributing. And we start to understand the complexity of the issue. But without that view, and Deming insisted on, then you're back to the blame flame.   0:15:45.1 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And Dave, I see a lot of books on the back on your shelf there about quality and productivity and team and many different things. But maybe you could give us a little background on kind of how how you, besides how you got onto this project and all that. But just where did you come from originally and how did you stumble into the Deming world?   0:16:08.9 Dave Williams: Sure. Well, sadly, I didn't have the pleasure of getting to sit in on a four-day workshop. Deming died in 1993. And at that time, I was working on an ambulance as a street paramedic and going to college to study ambulance system design and how to manage ambulance systems, which was a part of public safety that had sort of grown, especially in the United States in the '60s. And by the time I was joining, it was about 30 years into becoming more of a formalized profession. And I found my way to Austin, Texas, trying to find one of the more professionalized systems to work in and was, worked here as a paramedic for a few years. And then decided I wanted to learn more and started a graduate program. And one of the courses that was taught in the graduate program, this is a graduate program on ambulance management, was on quality. And it was taught by a gentleman who had written a, a guide for ambulance leaders in the United States that was based on the principles and methods of quality that was happening at this time. And it pieced together a number of different common tools and methods like Pareto charts and cause-and-effect diagrams and things like that.   0:17:33.1 Dave Williams: And it mentioned the different leaders like Deming and Juran and Crosby and others. And so that was my first exposure to many of these ideas. And because I was studying a particular type of healthcare delivery system and I was a person who was practicing within it and I was learning about these ideas that the way that you improve a system or make improvement is by changing the system. I was really intrigued and it just worked out at the time. One of the first roles, leadership roles that emerged in my organization was to be the Chief Quality Officer for the organization. And at the time, there were 20 applicants within my organization, but I was the only one that knew anything about any of the foundations of quality improvements. Everybody else applied and showed their understanding of quality from a lived experience perspective or what their own personal definitions of quality were, which was mostly around inspection and quality assurance. I had, and this won't surprise Cliff, but I had a nerdy response that was loaded with references and came from all these different things that I had been exposed to. And they took a chance on me because I was the only one that seemed to have some sense of the background. And I started working and doing...   0:19:10.1 Dave Williams: Improvement within this ambulance system as the kind of the dedicated leader who was supposed to make these changes. And I think one of the things that I learned really quickly is that frequently how improvement efforts were brought to my attention was because there was a problem that I, had been identified, a failure or an error usually attributed to an individual as Cliff pointed out, somebody did something and they were the unfortunate person who happened to kind of raise this issue to others. And if I investigated it all, I often found that there were 20 other people that made the same error, but he was, he or she was the only one that got caught. And so therefore they were called to my office to confess. And when I started to study and look at these different issues, every time I looked at something even though I might be able to attribute the, first instance to a person, I found 20 or more instances where the system would've allowed or did allow somebody else to make a similar error.   0:20:12.6 Dave Williams: We just didn't find it. And it got... And it became somewhat fascinating to me because my colleagues were very much from a, if you work hard and just do your job and just follow the policy then good quality will occur. And nobody seemed to spend any time trying to figure out how to create systems that produce good results or figure out how to look at a system and change it and get better results. And so most of my experience was coming from these, when something bubbled up, I would then get it, and then I'd use some systems thinking and some methods and all of a sudden unpack that there was a lot of variation going on and a lot of errors that could happen, and that the system was built to get results worse than we even knew.   0:21:00.7 Dave Williams: And it was through that journey that I ended up actually becoming involved with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and learning about what was being done in the healthcare sector, which API at the time were the key advisors to Dr. Don Berwick and the leadership at IHI. And so much of the methodology was there. And actually, that's how I found my way to Cliff. I happened to be at a conference for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and there was an advertisement for a program called the Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program, which was an improvement like practitioner project level program that had been developed by API that had been adapted to IHI, and I noticed that Cliff and Lloyd were the faculty, and that they were in my hometown. And that's how I reached out to them and said, hey can we have coffee? And Cliff said, yes. And so...   0:21:53.1 Andrew Stotz: And what was that, what year was that roughly?   0:22:00.3 Dave Williams: That would've been back in 2002 or 2003, somewhere in that vicinity.   0:22:02.0 Andrew Stotz: Hmm. Okay.   0:22:06.8 Dave Williams: Maybe a little bit later.   0:22:06.9 Andrew Stotz: I just for those people that are new to the topic and listening in I always give an example. When I worked at Pepsi... I graduated in 1989 from university with a degree in finance. And I went to work at Pepsi in manufacturing and warehouse in Los Angeles at the Torrance Factory originally, and then in Buena Park. But I remember that my boss told me, he saw that I could work computers at that time, and so I was making charts and graphs just for fun to look at stuff. And he said, yeah, you should go to a one of these Deming seminars. And so he sent me to the one in... At George Washington University back in 1990, I think it was. And but what was happening is we had about a hundred trucks we wanted to get out through a particular gate that we had every single morning. And the longer it took to get those trucks out the longer they're gonna be on LA traffic and on LA roads, so if we can get 'em out at 5:00 AM, fantastic. If we get 'em out at 7:00, we're in trouble. And so they asked me to look at this and I did a lot of studying of it and I was coming for like 4:00 in the morning I'd go up to the roof of the building and I'd look down and watch what was happening. And then finally I'd interview everybody. And then finally the truck drivers just said, look, the loaders mess it up so I gotta open my truck every morning and count everything on it. And I thought, oh, okay.   0:23:23.7 Andrew Stotz: So I'll go to the loaders. And I go, why are you guys messing this up? And then the loaders was like, I didn't mess it up. We didn't have the production run because the production people changed the schedule, and so we didn't have what the guy needed. And so, and oh, yeah, there was a mistake because the production people put the product in the wrong spot, and therefore, I got confused and I put the wrong stuff on by accident. And then I went to the production people and they said, well, no, it's not us. It's the salespeople. They keep putting all this pressure on us to put this through right now, and it's messing up our whole system. And that was the first time in my life where I realized, okay, it's a system. There's interconnected parts here that are interacting, and I had to go back into the system to fix, but the end result was I was able to get a hundred trucks through this gate in about 45 minutes instead of two hours, what we had done before.   0:24:18.8 Andrew Stotz: But it required a huge amount of work of going back and looking at the whole system. So the idea of looking at the science of improvement, as you mentioned, and the System of Profound Knowledge, it's... There's a whole process. Now, I wanna ask the question for the person who gets this book and they dig into it, it's not a small book. I've written some books, but all of 'em are small because I'm just, maybe I just can't get to this point. But this book is a big book, and it's got about 300... More than 300 pages. What's the promise? What are they gonna get from digging into this book? What are they gonna take away? What are they gonna be able to bring to their life and their business that they couldn't have done without really going deeper into this material?   0:24:57.7 Cliff Norman: Dave, go ahead.   0:25:01.4 Dave Williams: Well, I was gonna joke by saying they're gonna get hard work and only half because this is just the theory in the book and many of the... And sort of examples of the method. But we're in the process of preparing a field guide which is a much deeper companion guide loaded with exercises and examples of and more of the methods. So the original guide that that API had developed was actually about an eight... Well, I don't know how many pages it was, but it was a thick three inch binder. This, what you have there is us refining the content part that explains the theory and kind of gets you going. And then we moved all of the exercises and things to the field guide for people that really wanna get serious about it.   0:26:00.3 Dave Williams: And the reason I say hard work is that the one thing that you won't get, and you should probably pass it if this book if you're on Amazon, is you're not gonna get an easy answer. This is, as a matter of fact, one of the things that emerged in our early conversations about was this project worth it? Is to say that this is hard work. It's work that a very few number of leaders who or leadership teams that really want to learn and work hard and get results are gonna embark on. But for those, and many of our clients, I think are representative of that, of those people that say, gosh, I've been working really hard, and I feel like we could do better. I feel like I could make a bigger impact, or I could serve more customers or clients.   0:26:44.0 Dave Williams: And but I am... And I'm in intrigued or inspired or gotten to a certain point with improvement science on my own, but I want to figure out how to be more systematic and more global and holistic at that approach. Then that's what QOS is about. It builds on the shoulders of the other books that you mentioned, like The Improvement Guide which we talked about as being a great book about improvement, and improvement specifically in the context of a project. And other books like The Healthcare Data Guide and the Planned Experimentation, which are also about methods, healthcare Data Guide being about Shewhart charts, and Planned Experimentation being about factorial design. This book is about taking what Cliff described earlier as that... I always say it's that that diagram that people put on a slide and never talk about from Deming of production views as a system and saying, well, how would we do this if this is the model for adopting quality as strategy, what are the methods that help us to do this?   0:28:01.3 Dave Williams: And this book breaks that down into five activities that are built on the shoulders of profound knowledge, built on the shoulders of the science of improvement and provide a structure to be able to initially develop a system, a systems view of your organization, and then build on that by using that system to continually operate and improve that organization over time. So the book describes the activities. The book describes some of the things that go into getting started, including being becoming good at doing results-driven improvement, building a learning system, focusing in on the things that matter to your organization. And then working towards building the structure that you can improve upon. The book creates that foundation. It provides examples from clients and from people that we've worked with so that you can see what the theory looks like in practice get, kind of get a flavor for that. And we hope it builds on the shoulders of other work that I mentioned in the other books that compliment it and provides a starting point for teams that are interested in taking that journey.   0:29:26.5 Andrew Stotz: And Cliff, from your perspective, if somebody had no, I mean, I think, I think the Deming community's gonna really dive in and they're gonna know a lot of this stuff, but is gonna help them take it to the next level. But for someone who never had any real experience with Deming or anything like that, and they stumble upon this interview, this discussion, they hear about this book, can they get started right away with what's in this book? Or do they have to go back to foundations?   0:29:49.6 Cliff Norman: No, I think that can definitely get started. There's a lot of learning as you know, Andrew, from going through the four-day to understand things. And I think we've done a pretty good job of integrating what Dr. Deming taught us, as well as going with the methods. And one of the things people would tell him in his four-day seminars is, Dr. Deming, you've given us the theory, but we have no method here. And he said, well, if I have to give you the method, then you'll have to send me your check too. So he expected us to be smart enough to develop the methods. And the API folks did a really good job of translating that into what we call the five activities. So those five activities are to understand the purpose of the organization.   0:30:35.6 Cliff Norman: And a lot of people when they write a purpose, they'll put something up there but it's usually we love all our people. We love our customers even more. If only they didn't spend so much, and we'll come out with something like that and there'll be some pablum that they'll throw up on the wall. Well, this actually has some structure to it to get to Deming's ideas. And the first thing is let's try to understand what business we're in and what need we're serving in society that drives customers to us. So that word is used not need coming from customers, but what is it that drives them to us so we can understand that? And then the second part of that purpose needs to define the mainstay, the core processes, the delivery systems that relate directly to customers. And just those two ideas alone, just in the first activity of purpose, most people haven't thought about those ideas.   0:31:27.8 Cliff Norman: And can somebody pick up this book and do that? Yes. And that will answer a big challenge from Dr. Deming. Most people don't even know what business they're in, haven't even thought about it. And so that we... That question gets answered here, I think, very thoroughly. In this second activity, which is viewing the organization as a system contains two components that's viewing the organization as a system. And that's difficult to do, and a lot of people really don't see the need for it. Jane Norman reminded Dave and I on a call we did last week, that when you talk about a systems map with people, just ask 'em how do they know what's going on inside other organizations, other departments within their organization? How do they know that? And most of us are so siloed.   0:32:11.2 Cliff Norman: Somebody over here is doing the best job they can in department X, and meanwhile, department Y doesn't know anything about it. And then three months later the improvement shows up and all of a sudden there's problems now in department Y. Well, somebody who's focused on the organization as a system and sees how those processes are related when somebody comes to a management meeting said, well, we've just made a change here, and this is gonna show up over here in about three months, and you need to be prepared for that. Andrew, that conversation never takes place. So the idea of having the systems map and this book can help you get started on that. The second book that Dave was just talking about, there are more replete examples in there. I mean, we've got six case studies from clients in there than the practitioners and people who actually are gonna be doing this work.   0:33:01.7 Cliff Norman: That's gonna be absolutely... They're gonna need that field guide. And I think that's where Dave was coming from. The third activity is the information activity, how are we learning from outside the organization and how do we get feedback and research into the development of new products and services and the rest of it? And so we provided a system there. In fact, Dave took a lead on that chapter, and we've got several inputs there that have to be defined. And people just thinking through that and understanding that is huge. When Dr. Deming went to Japan in 1950, he was there to do the census to see how many Japanese were left after World War II. And then he got an invitation to come and talk to the top 50 industrialists. And he started asking questions and people from the Bank of Tokyo over there and all the rest of it.   0:33:52.4 Cliff Norman: And Dr. Deming says, well, do you have any problems? And they said, what do you mean? He says, well, do customers call up and complain? And he said, yes. And he says, well, do you have any data? And he said, no. He says, but if they complain, we give them a Geisha calendar. And then Dr. Deming says, well, how many Geisha calendars have you given out? So it's like, in 1991, I'm sitting here talking to a food company and I asked him, I said, well, you get customer complaints? Oh yeah. Do you have any data on it? No, but we give 'em a cookbook. I said, well, how many cookbooks are you giving out? So I was right back to where Deming was in 1950, so having the information activity, that third activity critical so that we're being proactive with it and not just reactive.   0:34:43.7 Cliff Norman: And so I think people can read through that and say, well, what are we doing right now? Well, I guess we're not doing this and move on. Then the fourth activity is absolutely critical. This is where you know that you've arrived, because now you're going to integrate not only the plan to operate, but a plan to improve. That becomes the business plan. For most people in business plan they do a strategy, and then they have a bunch of sub strategies, and they vote on what's important, and they do some other things, and then a year later they come back and revisit it. Well, what happens here is there's some strategic objectives that are laid out, and then immediately it comes down to, okay, what's gonna be designed and redesigned in this system? Which processes, products and services are gonna be designed? 'Cause we can all see it now, Andrew.   0:35:31.6 Andrew Stotz: Mm.   0:35:31.6 Cliff Norman: We can, it's right in front of us. So it's really easy to see at this point, and now we can start to prioritize and make that happen on purpose. As an example when Jane was a vice president at Conagra, they came up with five strategic objectives. Then they made a bunch of promises to corporate about what they were gonna do and when they were going to achieve it. When she laid out the systems map for them, they were horrified that over 30% of the processes that they needed to be having precooked meat didn't even exist. They were gonna have to be designed. And so Jane and I sat there and looking at 'em and said, well, if you'd had this map before you made the promises, would you have made those promises? No, no, we're in trouble right now. I gotta go back to the CEO of the holding company and tell 'em we're not gonna make it.   0:36:22.4 Cliff Norman: But there's a whole bunch of people that sit around in goal settings. We're gonna do this by when and have no idea about what they're talking about. So that's a little bit dangerous here. And then the fifth activity, it's probably the most important. And where I want people to start, I actually want 'em to start on the fifth activity, which is managing individual improvement activities, team activities. And what I mean by that is, nothing can hold you up from starting today on making an improvement and use the model for improvement. The three basic questions, you can write that on an envelope and apply it to a project and start right away. Because learning the habit of improvement, and when you identify, and this is typical in the planning process, again, a chapter that Dave took a lead on in the planning chapter.   0:37:03.8 Cliff Norman: When you lay that out, you're gonna come up with three to five strategic objectives, but that's gonna produce anywhere between 15 and 20 improvement efforts. And when people start three improvement efforts, and they see how difficult that is to traffic through an organization, particularly if you have a systems map, makes it a lot easier. If you don't have that, then there's all sorts of things that happen to you.   0:37:21.3 Andrew Stotz: Hmm.   0:37:22.8 Cliff Norman: But the, the idea of that all coming together is critical. And where you... Where that really shows up for the reader here is in chapter one. So Lloyd Provost took a lead on chapter one. If you read chapter one, you got a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen in the rest of the book. But more importantly, in that book, in chapter one, there's a survey at the end. And every time we give this out to people, they feel real bad.   0:37:48.1 Cliff Norman: And well, Cliff, any, on a scale of one to 10, we only came up with a four. Well, what I would tell 'em is, if you can come up with a four, you're pretty good. And those fundamentals have to be in place. In other words, the management needs to trust each other. There are certain things that have to be in place before you can even think about skating backwards here. And quality as an organizational strategy is all about skating backwards. The people who don't have the fundamentals can't even start to think about that.   0:38:15.0 Cliff Norman: So that survey and the gap between where they are at a four and where they're going to be at a 10, we've integrated throughout the whole book. So as you're reading through the whole book, you're seeing that gap, and then you have a good plan forward as to what do I need to do to get to be a six, an eight, and what do I need to do to finally arrive at a 10? Dave, why don't you add to what I just said there, and I gotta turn on a light here, I think.   0:38:39.2 Dave Williams: Well, I think one of the things that, and Cliff has probably been the one that has helped me appreciate this to the biggest degree is the role in which improvement plays in quality as an organizational strategy. So, I mean, I think in general, in our world, improvement is seen as kind of like a given, but in our case, what we've found is that many times people are not working on the things right in front of them or the problems in which they have, that they are on the hook... I like to say, are on the hook to get accomplished right now. And like Cliff mentioned, many of my clients when I engage with them, I say, well, what have you promised this year? And they'll give me a list and I'll say, well, okay, what are you working on to improve? And they'll be working on projects that are not related to that list of things that they've got to affect. And so usually that's a first pivot is to say, well, let's think about what are the things that you're working on or should be working on that are either designing or redesigning your system to achieve these strategic objectives.   0:39:48.8 Dave Williams: And the reason to put the attention on that fifth activity and get people working on improvement, there's a good chance that the improvement capability within the organization currently isn't to the level that you need it, where you can get results-driven projects happening at a clip that will enable you to chip away at 20 projects versus four in a year. And that it's not well integrated into the leadership, into the support structures that you have. In addition, if you're trying to use improvement on things that you're on the hook for, and Cliff noted, especially if you've got a system map while you're on that journey, you're gonna start to pick up on where the disconnects are. Similar to your example, Andrew, where you were describing your experience working backwards in the process, you're going to start to recognize, oh, I'm working on this, but it's linked to these other things. Or in order for me to do this, I need that. Or... And so that amplifies the project to be kind of just a vehicle to appreciate other things that are interconnected, that are important in improving our work together.   0:41:05.1 Dave Williams: And so I think that that's a critical piece. I mean, I sometimes describe it as the disappointment that people have when they open QOS because they want to have a new method or a new thing to work on. I said, well, there's a lot new in here. And at the same time, we want to build on the shoulders of the fundamentals. We want to build it because it's the fundamentals that are going to be able for you to activate the things that are necessary in order for you to skate backwards, like Cliff was describing earlier.   0:41:36.2 Cliff Norman: I got to add to what Dave was saying because this actually happened to me with a... I'm not going to mention the name of the company, but it's a high-tech companies worldwide. And we got up, a good friend of mine, Bruce Bowles, and we were introducing the idea of quality as an organizational strategy. And one of the guys in the front row, he says, Cliff, this just sounds like common sense, why aren't we all doing this? I said, that's a real good question. Let me put that in the parking lot here. So I put it up on a flip chart. And so we went through the idea of... We were working on Shewhart control charts. And so we showed him one of those. And at the end of all that, he raised his hand and I said, yeah, he says, Cliff, this is hard. I said, well, let me put that up here. This is hard. Then we went through the systems map and he says, look, this is hard. By the end of the two days, it was, this is hard, this is hard, this is hard, this is hard. This goes back to what Dave was saying earlier about once you open this page, there's some work that takes off, but more importantly, there's something new to learn here.   0:42:40.3 Cliff Norman: And that's frustrating to people, especially when they've got to quit doing what they've done in the past. It's what Deming says, you got to give up on the guilt and you got to move forward and transform your own thinking. So there's something here for the management to do. And if they're not willing to do that work, then this is probably not a good thing for them. Just go back to the blame flame and circling org charts and that kind of stuff and then wonder why we're losing money.   0:43:11.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things that we see in the Deming community is that, why are people doing it the way they are, dividing things up and doing KPIs and saying, you take care of that. And we're gonna optimize by focusing on each... We see how that all kind of falls apart.   0:43:27.9 Cliff Norman: It all falls through reductionism.   0:43:29.8 Andrew Stotz: [laughter] Yeah.   0:43:32.5 Cliff Norman: It doesn't understand the system, yeah.   0:43:32.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, so what I want to do now is I was just thinking about a book on my shelf called "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. And there's a whole field of study in the area of strategy for businesses. Now you guys use, and you explain a little bit about the way you come up with... Why you come up with organization rather than let's say company as an example. But let's just talk about strategy for a moment. Generally we're taught in business school that there's two main strategies. One is a differentiation strategy. I like to teach my students like Starbucks. It's very differentiated from the old model. And you can have a low cost strategy, which is like McDonald's, where it's all about operational efficiency.   0:44:18.4 Andrew Stotz: And those are two different strategies that can get to the same goal, which is to build a strong and sustainable business that's making a good profit for the employees to get paid well and for shareholders. And so for somebody that understands some of the foundations of typical strategy, it's hard for them to think, wait, wait, wait, what? You're just talking about just better quality is the strategy? How should they frame this concept of quality as a strategy in relation to what we've been taught about low cost and differentiation and other types of strategy? How do we think about this book in relation to that?   0:45:03.2 Cliff Norman: When Deming wrote his book, his very first one of the four "Out of the Crisis", which was the whole idea about quality and competitive position. But he was kind of answering that. And at that time, what we had is we had three companies in the United States that were going at each other, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. And they'd call each other up, well, what are you doing this year? Oh, we're making cars that don't work. Sometimes they break down. That's why we have Mr. Goodwrench to repair them. That's an extra revenue source for us. As one of the executives that are challenged, a colleague of mine, he said, you don't realize how much money we're gonna lose here taking the repair business out because we make a lot of money out of repair. So making cars that don't work has been a good revenue stream for us. Well, all that works out great, until somebody shows up like Toyota that has a car that works and doesn't need to be repaired by Mr. Goodwrench all the time.   0:45:58.8 Cliff Norman: So the mind shift there, and what Dr. Deming was saying is that he was focused on the competition's already licked. And I don't think Porter's thought about that very much, not to be overly critical, because I'm an admirer of his, but the idea of focusing on the need and why is that customer coming to us so that we make a journey, and the Japanese call that being in the Gemba, being in the presence with the customers as they use the product or service and doing the research and the rest of it. And then coming back and then redesign that product or service so that it not only grabs the current customer, but we start thinking about customers that are not even our customers and innovate and actually come up with a design that actually brings new customers to us through products and services that we haven't thought about yet. So if I show you three products just to make a picture of it, we often show like an abacus, which was a hand calculating machine about BC. Then there's a slide rule that came out about the same year that Columbus discovered America. And that was good till about 1968.   0:47:06.0 Cliff Norman: And then the calculator, the handheld calculator came out. Well the need for all three of those products is to do handheld calculations. So we've had that need since BC. Now in 1967, K&E Calculator was making that slide rule, which I used in junior high school. If you'd have come up to me and said, Cliff, what do you need in the way of a better slide rule? I said, well can you get me a holster for it? 'Cause I don't like having to stick me in the face. I put it in my pocket and it sticks me in the face. And if you can give me a holster for that, that would be my view of that. I wasn't about to come up with the TI calculator. That wasn't gonna happen. Not from Cliff. It's gonna come from an engineer at TI. Now, K&E Calculator, if they'd been doing research in the marketplace and saying, is there something that can totally disrupt us going on here? Rather than just looking at figuring out a way to make the K&E slide rule better, they might've discovered that.   0:48:07.0 Cliff Norman: Most people don't do that. They just go back. They just lose their business. And it was interesting in '67, their annual report put out, what's the world gonna look like 100 years from now? So they had dome cities, they had cars flying, they had all sorts of things going on that were great innovations, but they didn't have the TI calculator in there, along with the HP calculator. And that wiped out their business. And so if people understand the need, and that's what Dr. Deming is getting at, he says, they really haven't thought about what business they're in. So why are the customers coming to us? He says, no customer ever asked for pneumatic tire. No customer ever asked for a microwave oven. That came from people with knowledge that were looking at how the customers are using the current products and services and say, now, is there technology innovation going on that we can actually do a better job of providing a better match in the future?   0:48:56.9 Andrew Stotz: And can you explain why you use the word need as opposed to want?   0:49:06.5 Cliff Norman: That's a good question. The idea is that there's a need that's constant in society. So that need of having to do handheld calculations or needing healthcare or to pay bills, that need is constant throughout civilization. And so if I want something that's interesting, that might be the match. That might be something to do with some features what I'm offering and so forth. I'd like to have this, I'd like to have that. But the need and the way we're using that is it doesn't come from customers. It's what drives customers to us. And it's always been there. It's always been there. Need for transportation, for example. Whether you're walking or driving a bicycle or a car or a plane.   0:49:53.6 Andrew Stotz: And Dave, how would you answer the same question when you think about a person running a business and they've had many strategy meetings in their business, they've set their corporate strategy of what we're doing, where we're going and that type of thing. And maybe they've picked, we're gonna be a low cost producer. Thailand's an interesting one because Thailand had a ability to be low cost producers in the past. And then China came along and became the ultimate low cost producer. And all of a sudden, Thai companies had a harder time getting the economies of scale and the like. And now the Chinese manufacturers are just really coming into Thailand, into the Thai market. And now it's like, for a Thai company to become a low cost leader is almost impossible given the scale that China and the skills that they have in that. And so therefore, they're looking at things like I've got to figure out how to get a better brand. I've got to figure out how to differentiate and that type of thing. How does this... How could this help a place like that and a management team that is struggling and stuck and is looking for answers?   0:51:07.0 Dave Williams: Well, I go back to what Cliff said about that many organizations don't pause to ask, why do they exist? What is the need of which they are trying to fulfill? Much of my background involved working in the service industry, initially with public safety and ambulance systems and fire systems, and then later in healthcare and in education. And in many of those environments, especially in places where in public systems where they've been built and they may have existed for a long time, when you ask them about what are they trying to accomplish as an organization or what is it that they... The need that they're trying to fulfill? Typically, they're gonna come back to you with requests or desires or wants or sort of characteristics or outcomes that people say they expect, but they don't pause to ask, like, well, what is the actual thing of which I'm trying to tackle? And Cliff mentioned like, and we actually, I should mention in the book, we have a list of different strategies, different types of strategies, all the different ones that you mentioned, like price and raw material or distribution style or platform or technology.   0:52:30.9 Dave Williams: There's different types of strategies, and the one that we are focusing in on is quality. But I think it's important for people to ask the question. Cliff mentioned transportation. There's a number of different great examples, actually, I think in transportation, where you could look at that as being an ongoing need as Cliff mentioned from the days when there was no technology and we were all on foot to our current day. Transportation has been a need that existed and many different things over time have been created from bicycles, probably one of the most efficient technologies to transport somebody, wheels and carts. And now, and you were referencing, we've made reference to the car industry. It's a fascinating experience going on of the car world and gas versus electric, high technology versus not, autonomous vehicles. There's, and all of them are trying to ask the question of, are there different ways in which I might be able to leverage technology to achieve this need of getting from point A to point B and be more useful and potentially disrupt in the marketplace? And so I think the critical thing initially is to go back and ask and learn and appreciate what is that need?   0:53:58.6 Dave Williams: And then think about your own products and services in relation to that. And I think we include four questions in the book to be able to kind of think about the need. And one of those questions is also, what are other ways in which you could fulfill that need? What are other ways that somebody could get transportation or do learning or to help sort of break you away from just thinking about your own product as well? And that's useful because it's super tied to the system question, right? Of, well, this is the need that we're trying to fulfill and these are the products and services that are matching that need. Then the system that we have is about, we need to build that and design that in order to produce, not only produce the products and services that match that need, but also continually improve that system to either improve those products and services or add or subtract products and services to keep matching the need and keep being competitive or keep being relevant. And maybe if it's not in a competitive environment where you're gonna go out of business, at least be relevant in terms of the city service or community service, government service that continues to be there to match the need of the constituents. So I think it's a really important piece.   0:55:17.0 Dave Williams: It's that North star of saying, providing a direction for everything else. And going back to your original comment or question about strategy, and many times people jump to a strategy or strategies or, and those might be more around particular objectives or outcomes that they're trying to get to. It may not actually be about the method or the approach like cost or technology that they may not even think that way. They may be more thinking about a plan. And I really encourage people to be clear about what they're trying to accomplish and then start to ask, well, how's the system built for that? And later we can bring a process that'll help us learn about our system and learn about closing that gap.   0:56:05.1 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Just what I'd add to that, Andrew, because you mentioned China, a few other countries, but I think the days are coming to an end fairly quickly where somebody can say, oh, we can go to this country. They have low wages, we'll put our plant there and all that. There's a lot of pushback on that, particularly in the United States. And if that's your strategy, that hadn't required a lot of thinking to say the least. But in 1966, over 50% of the countries in the world were, let me rephrase that, over 50% of the population of the world lived in extreme poverty. So there were a lot of targets to pick out where you want to put your manufacturing. And in 2017, and you and Dave were probably like myself, I didn't see this hit the news, but that figure had been reduced from over 50% down to 9%. And all you have to do is just, and I worked in China a lot, they're becoming very affluent. And as they become very affluent, that means wages are going up and all the things that we want to see throughout the world. And I think that's happening on a grand scale right now, but you're also getting a lot of pushback from people when they see the middle class in their own country, like here in the United States, destroyed, and say, I think we've had enough of this. And I think you're gonna see that after January. You're gonna see that take off on steroids.   0:57:31.7 Cliff Norman: And that's gonna happen, and I think throughout the world, people are demanding more, there's gonna have to be more energy, every time a baby is born, the footprints gets bigger for more energy and all the rest of it. So it's gonna be interesting, and I think we are going into an age for the planet where people as Dr. Deming promised that they'd be able to live materially better, and the whole essence of this book is to focus on the quality of the organization and the design and redesign of a system to a better job of matching the need and cause that chain reaction to go off. When Jane and I went over to work in Sweden, Sven Oloff who ran three hospitals and 62 dental clinics there and also managed the cultural activities and young shipping. He said, Cliff, I report to 81 politicians. I don't wanna have to go to them to put a bond on an election to get more money for my healthcare system, I wanna use Dr. Deming's chain reaction here to improve care to the patients in my county and also reduce our costs. A whole bunch of people that don't even believe that's possible in healthcare.   0:58:39.9 Cliff Norman: But that's what Sven Oloff said that's what you're here for. And that's what we proceeded to do, they launched about 350 projects to do just that, and one of their doctors, Dr. Motz [?], he's amazing. We taught him a systems map, I came back two months later, and he had them in his hospital on display. And I said, Motz, how did you do this? He said well Cliff, I'm an endocrinologist by education as a doctor, of course, that's a person who understands internal systems in the body. So he said the systems approach was a natural for me. But I'd like to say it was that easy for everybody else, that systems map idea and as you know, being in the Deming seminar, that's quite a challenge to move from viewing the organization as an org chart, which has been around since Moses father-in-law told him, you need to break up the work here a little bit, and the tens of tens reporting to each other, and then of course, the Romans took that to a grander scale, and so a centurion soldier had 100 other soldiers reporting to him. So we've had org charts long and our federal government took that to a whole new level.   0:59:46.1 Cliff Norman: But the idea is switching off the org chart from biblical times to actually getting it up to Burt [?] about 1935 and understanding a system that's kind of a nose bleed in terms of how much we're traveling there to get us into the 21st century here.   1:00:04.0 Andrew Stotz: And I left Ohio, I grew up outside of Cleveland, and I left Ohio in about 1985, roughly. And it was still a working class, Cleveland had a huge number of jobs and there was factories and all that, and then I went to California, and then I moved to Thailand in 1992. So when I go back to Ohio now, many years later, decades later, it's like a hollowed out place, and I think about what you're saying is... And what's going on in the world right now is that I think there's a desire in America to bring back manufacturing to bring back production and all of that, and that's a very, very hard challenge, particularly if it's gone for a while and the skill sets aren't there, maybe the education system isn't there, I talk a lot with John Dues here on the show about the what's happening in education and it's terrifying.   1:01:05.9 Andrew Stotz: So how could this be... Book be a guide for helping people that are saying, we've got to revitalize American production and manufacturing and some of these foundational businesses and not just services, which are great. How can this book be a guide?   1:01:25.8 Dave Williams: One thing I would say that I think is interesting about our times, many times when I reflect on some of the examples that you just provided, I think about how changes were made in systems without thinking about the whole system together. And there may have been changes at various times that we're pursuing particular strategies or particular approaches, so it may have been the low-cost strategy, it may have been to disrupt a marketplace. And oftentimes, they don't think about... When somebody's pursuing one particular view, they may miss other views that are important to have an holistic perspective. One of the things that I appreciate about QoS in the methods and overall as a holistic view of looking at organizations that it's asking us to really think initially about that North Star, what we're trying to do, our purpose, and what are the tenants. What are the things that are important us, the values...   1:02:38.7 Dave Williams: That are important to us in pursuing that particular purpose? And in doing that, really thinking about how does the system work as it is today, and if we make changes, how does it move in alignment with the values that we have and in the direction that we wanna go? And appreciating, I would say, part of the value of the scientific thinking that is in the Science of Improvement is that it encourages you to try to see what happens and appreciate not only what happens in relation to the direction you're trying to go, but also the... Have a balanced view of looking at the collateral effects of things that you do, and I think that systems do is really important there. So I think from that perspective, the quality as an organizational strategy brings a holistic picture into these organizations, or at least...   1:03:45.1 Dave Williams: To be paying attention to the system that you have, maybe the direction you wanna go, and what happens as you... What are your predictions and what do you see when you study the results of making changes in the direction of the vision that you have. And I think that's at a high level that is one of the ways that I think about it. Cliff, how would you add on there?   1:04:09.1 Cliff Norman: Your question made me think of something that happened about two years ago, Jane and I got a call from a lady that worked for her in one of the chicken plants, and she said, Jane, I had to call you because I need to order some of those Shewhart charts. But what happened today, you should have been here and Jane said, what... She said, Remember that 10 year thing we buried in the ground that we're gonna open up in 10 years, and she said, yeah, said, well, we opened it up today, and the new plant manager was here, and those Shewhart charts came out, and he looked at the costs on them. He said, you were operating at this level? She said, yeah, routinely. And he said what happened? He said, well, they had new management come in and they got rid of the charts, that's the first thing they did, and then gradually they try to manage things like they normally did, and then they forgot everything that we had learned. And that's kind of where we are right now.   1:05:11.0 Cliff Norman: So just think of that a decade goes by, and it just as Dr. Deming said, there's nothing worse than the mobility of management, it's like getting AIDS in the system. And they basically destroyed their ability to run a low-cost operation in an industry that runs on 1 or 2%. And when you watch that happen and understand that we still have food companies in this country, and we have to start there and start looking at the system anew and start thinking about how it can actually cause that chain reaction to take off, and that comes from focusing on quality of the system. And then as Dr. Deming says, anybody that's ever worked for a living knows why costs go down with two words less rework, but instead of people will put in extra departments to handle the rework. Next thing they start building departments to handle...   1:06:01.8 Cliff Norman: The stuff that's not working because the system they don't understand. So that was a... What do they call those things, Dave, where they put them in the ground and pull him out?   1:06:11.0 Dave Williams: Time capsule.   1:06:13.4 Andrew Stotz: Time capsule yeah.   1:06:13.5 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Time capsule. The a 10-year time capsule.   1:06:19.2 Andrew Stotz: It's a great, great story. And a great idea. We had a company in Thailand a very large company that the CEO of it came upon the idea of the teachings of Dr. Deming and over time, as he implemented it in his company, the Japanese Union of Scientists have their prize and his company won that prize and then he had about 10 subsidiary companies that also were doing it and they also won over time. And so Thailand is actually is the second largest recipient of the Japanese Deming Award outside of India. But he left and he retired and another guy took over, a very bright guy and all that, but he threw most of that out and focused on newer methods like KPIs and things like that. And just at the end of last year, maybe six months ago, they reported a pretty significant loss, and I was kind of made me think how we can spend all this time getting the Deming teachings into our business, and then one little change in management and it's done.   1:07:26.9 Andrew Stotz: And that made me think, oh, well, that's the value of the book, in the sense that it's about building the concept of quality as a core part of strategy as opposed to just a tool or a way of thinking that could go out of the company as soon as someone else comes in. Go ahead, Dave.   1:07:41.9 Dave Williams: I was gonna say, Andrew, you raise a point, I think it's really, really important and Cliff mentioned this in terms of the problem of mobility of management. One thing that I don't know that we outline probably in dark enough ink in the book is the critically important piece of leadership, building the structures and the capability. I know we talk a little bit about it, but doing it in a way that both builds up the people that you have... So Cliff emphasiz

From school run mumming to ‘mumpreneur' (the worst of the worst when it comes to archaic phrases), the fashion industry simply doesn't get the reality of our 40-something parental lives. But do we care? What is our style now? And how did we look back in the 90s? We go via Kookai and Jane Norman in an episode that opens up our wardrobes and questions our, well, fashion sense.

Join us as we explore the road ahead in this new age of disruption: https://deloi.tt/48Id4Sb   In the journey toward achieving net-zero by 2050, the Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts (in it's 2022 ISP Step Change scenario), that 10 gigawatts of gas-fired generation will be required to firm renewable energy sources.    In this episode, Bernadette Cullinane, Deloitte's Energy, Resources & Industrials Industry Lead Partner, had the great pleasure of chatting to Managing Director and CEO of Cooper Energy, Jane Norman, about the role that gas will play as we transition to a decarbonised economy.   To discover more insights from the AFR Energy and Climate Summit: https://deloi.tt/3LLOuWI   Connect with the speakers: Bernadette Cullinane: https://au.linkedin.com/in/bernadette-cullinane-7912907 Jane Norman: https://au.linkedin.com/in/jane-norman-51964551

Novak Djokovic is almost certain to return to the Oz Open this summer despite being handed a three year ban from Australia in January. How did the tennis star get himself on track for the next grand slam? Is this a case of special treatment? How might the Serbian be received at the tournament? We dig into the story. Featured: Jane Norman, senior political reporter, ABC.  Subscribe to the ABC Sport Newsletter

Novak Djokovic is almost certain to return to the Oz Open this summer despite being handed a three year ban from Australia in January. How did the tennis star get himself on track for the next grand slam? Is this a case of special treatment? How might the Serbian be received at the tournament? We dig into the story. Featured: Jane Norman, senior political reporter, ABC.  Subscribe to the ABC Sport Newsletter

Abby in her own words:   “Growing up, the outdoors wasn't a place I spent much time, unless you count doing all nighters in the park guzzling Bacardi Breezers and shivering into my Jane Norman parka as a teenager.   It wasn't a place I felt I belonged. I hated exercise and actively avoided it at all costs, so much so, I'd hide in the showers to bunk PE lessons.   During lockdown, my dad gave me his 23 year old mountain bike and I set myself a challenge to cycle the distance from John O' Groats to Lands End around my hometown to keep myself from melting into the sofa.   I LOVED it! I felt strong and alive as I whooshed through the isolated streets. Is this what it felt like to enjoy exercise? Had I finally found 'my sport'? 300 miles in, I discovered an enormous Ovarian Tumour.    2 weeks later I was having surgery and my virtual cycle adventure was paused.   The tumour turned out to be a rare form of Ovarian Cancer. I was lucky, it hadn't spread to other organs which meant surgery was all I needed, however, I discovered the dire stats surrounding Ovarian Cancer and feeling lucky to be alive, I wanted to do something to raise awareness and vital funds for the disease.   I decided to cycle John O' Groats to Lands End for real, but this time, I'd make it as fun and spicy as possible. I strapped my gear to the bike and headed for an off road route following GB Divide and Great North Trail. I'd be camping most nights and carrying everything I needed.   I didn't train, I didn't even cycle much before I left, I just had blind faith that if I pedalled one foot at a time I'd eventually get there.”   ***   New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast go live every Tuesday at 7am UK time - Hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out.    You can support the mission to increase the amount of female role models in the media. Visit www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast and subscribe - super quick and easy to do and it makes a massive difference. Thank you.   Show notes Who is Abby in her own words Growing up in a non-sporty family Her teenage years Hating all sports but enjoy skiing Started climbing in Northumberland Climbing and hiking with her ex Spending a month in Grampians National Park Breaking up with her ex and going out on her own Plans to go together to Hampi in India Being uncomfortable going out by herself Driving a camper van to the North Island and South Island for two months Back to working in the events industry Wanting to do more Feeling uncomfortable being seen as a climber Pushing through the fear GB Divide - her first ever bike packing trip Cycling as a kid Deciding to cycle from John o'Groats to Land's End Discovering a big tumour in her ovary Not having any symptoms aside from bloating Finding out about her cancer at the start of COVID Being isolated alone before surgery Fundraising for Ovarian Cancer Action Why is she raising funds for Ovarian Cancer Action Getting support from her mum after her surgery When did she decide to give back Being unable to engage in any activities for six weeks Missing the bike ride around her area Feeling lucky despite going through a traumatic period More details about GB Divide and how she learned about this challenge Taking on the challenge on her father's old mountain bike Borrowing and purchasing necessary equipment Planning the cycle challenge Procrastinating and panicking about being unprepared Getting fit as she goes Driving with her friends from Edinburgh to John O'Groats Getting nervous and figuring out things as she goes Her first night of the challenge Enjoying cycling and feeling proud Staying in Scotland Doing the Cairnwell Pass Being able to do 580 miles on the trail Learned lessons that she can apply to the second half of the challenge Having knee pain Having no knowledge about nutrition Where did @adventure_logistics_queen come from Final words of advice   Social Media   Instagram: @abby_popplestone   Just Giving: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/abby-popplestone  

Rapidly rising gas prices and problems with coal fired power stations have led to what the Labor government is calling a "perfect storm".Experts say without intervention, the energy crisis will hit households and businesses alike. So what can the new government do?David Speers is joined by ABC political reporter Jane Norman and ABC Capricornia breakfast presenter Paul Culliver to answer your questions about the energy crisis, emissions reduction targets, the Biloela Tamil family, the new dynamic between the Liberals and Nationals, and more.

Rapidly rising gas prices and problems with coal fired power stations have led to what the Labor government is calling a "perfect storm". Experts say without intervention, the energy crisis will hit households and businesses alike. So what can the new government do? David Speers is joined by ABC political reporter Jane Norman and ABC Capricornia breakfast presenter Paul Culliver to answer your questions about the energy crisis, emissions reduction targets, the Biloela Tamil family, the new dynamic between the Liberals and Nationals, and more.

From ‘Iceberg' jeans to ‘Avirex' jackets, fashion in the Noughties was SICK and questionable at the same time. We had bootcut jeans, high waisted belts and Jane Norman bags, BUT… nonetheless we still looked stylish! Fast forward to now, and we see that some of those fashion trends are coming back today.We delve into how fashion looked back then with one of Grime's day one's, Tinchy Stryder alongside one of today's music/fashion icons, Kojey Radical.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Party leaders were peppered with trivia questions about economic figures this week, after Anthony Albanese's blunder on day one of the campaign. But is any part of the campaign cutting through the noise and changing voters minds? ABC reporters Jane Norman and Matt Doran join David Speers to discuss week one of the election campaign, and answer your questions.To ask our team of experts a question, email australiavotespodcast@abc.net.au

Party leaders were peppered with trivia questions about economic figures this week, after Anthony Albanese's blunder on day one of the campaign. But is any part of the campaign cutting through the noise and changing voters minds? ABC reporters Jane Norman and Matt Doran join David Speers to discuss week one of the election campaign, and answer your questions. To ask our team of experts a question, email australiavotespodcast@abc.net.au

Tracy Perez has navigated tremendous challenges since Sept. 29th, 2017 after her husband, Juan Perez was involved in a motor vehicle accident where a train hit the car he was traveling in, while on a business trip in Amsterdam. Juan's injuries were severe. In addition to multiple physical injuries he also suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Both Tracy and Juan's life, as well that of their two children and grandchildren, changed in an instant. Tracy shares her courageous and inspiring story with us and dives deep into how to navigate Worker's Comp Insurance and how she assembled a "dream team" to create top-of-the-line facilities for Juan. Travis Camerio, CPHB, CAPS of Camerio Builders, occupational therapist, Peggy Freedman, Jane Norman, nurse case manager, and equipment specialist Garol Orr owner of 101 Mobility, all played a vital role in bringing this project to life. This project spanned over 3 years. That's how long it took to create a space that was not only accessible and functional for Juan, but one that also took into account future needs that may arise as part of the natural aging process. In addition to this, a state-of-the-art sensory room was created to help Juan recover from his TBI.Please listen to this heart-warming story that educates us on how the building industry can change lives.  Support the show

Whether it's a baked potato in a M&S cafe, a Jane Norman shopping bag, or a limited-range of celebrity dresses at Topshop, there's nothing that gets our hearts racing or our wallets twitching like the high street. Fashion writer Lauren Bravo joins Caroline to talk about the nostalgia of the high street, the evolution of Christmas gift giving, the unique personalities of each shop (Warehouse is for cool girls who have long weekends in Berlin, end of) and the ever-changing world of retail. Lauren Bravo is the author of How To Break Up With Fast Fashion, What Would The Spice Girls Do? and has a novel coming in 2023. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's Wednesday gang! Today we're talking about school memories - Were you more of a Jane Norman or Cath Kidson kind of girl?! And of course, we're answering a brand new set of your dilemmas! Today we're drinking a Rosé called “ à la rêverie ”!https://www.chateaudemontfrin.com/en/project/a-la-reverie/Our ratings are:Sophie: 4Melissa: 4Love,S & M xSocial - @wednesdayswedrinkwineEmail - wednesdayswedrinkwine@gmail.comJamPot Productions See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“I went back looking at one of the qualities of leadership we need particularly now during a pandemic, I went back to Thucydides and Athens and I found Pericles’ funeral narration made during the destructive pandemic that hit Athens.”   Description: In times when we are all facing a crisis of unprecedented proportion, we are going change the focus of the podcast: we will now be interviewing psychoanalysts from all corners of the globe to discuss how their local communities are coping with this situation, how their clinical work has been affected by the situation, and how the internal worlds of both the analysts and the patients have been impacted by this virus as it touches both our real and imaginary fears. This is an opportunity to gain great wisdom, empathy, and hope.     Dr. Steven Rolfe welcomes Dr. Michael Maccoby. Dr Maccoby is a psychoanalyst and anthropologist and is globally recognized as an expert on leadership for his research, writing, and work to improve organizations and the workplace environment. He has authored or co-authored fourteen books and consulted to companies, governments, the World Bank, unions, research and development centers and laboratories, universities, and orphanages, and taught in 36 countries. Dr. Maccoby has taught leadership at Oxford and directed the Program on Technology, Public Policy, and Human Development at the Kennedy School from 1970-90. He worked consulting on leadership for 13 years at the State Department. In 2008 he received the Swedish honor of Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star for his work in Sweden and, in 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington School of Psychiatry.   Key takeaways: [4:21] Dr. Maccoby talks about how he first became interested in psychoanalysis. [9:21] Dr. Maccoby was in analysis with Eric Fromm for 8 years while working with him. [10:56] Dr. Maccoby talks about his work with organizations from early times in his career. [11:55] Humanizing the workplace. [14:10] The beginning of Dr. Maccobi’s studies in leadership. [14:33] Dr. Maccobi shares how Eric Fromm influenced his career. [17:43] Dr. Maccobi talks about his book. Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. and the reaction it caused in Donald Trump. [18:03] The productive and destructive aspects of narcissism. [20:22] Dr. Maccobi updated Fromm’s personality types with her own set of ideas. [23:48] Dr. Maccobi talks about Donald Trumps’ personality type as a Marketing Personality. [25:50] Dr. Maccobi shares what motivated him to write Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump: Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust. [27:56] The kind of president the USA needs: Pericles’ principles for a leader applied to America’s greatest presidents. [31:03] The role of aggression in the marketing personality type. [33:45] The transition between the clinical work and the consulting one in the organizational field.   Mentioned in this episode: IPA Off the Couch www.ipaoffthecouch.org   Recommended Readings: Maccoby, Michael. The Gamesman: The New Corporate Leaders. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.   Maccoby, Michael. Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.   Maccoby, Michael. The Leaders We Need: And What Makes Us Follow. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.   Maccoby, Michael and Clifford L. Norman, Jane Norman, and Richard Margolies. Transforming Health Care Leadership: A Systems Guide to Improve Patient Care, Decrease Costs, and Improve Population Health. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, 2013.   Maccoby, Michael. Strategic Intelligence: Conceptual Tools for Leading Change. Oxford University Press, 2015.   Maccoby Michael and Ken Fuchsman, editors. Psychoanalytic and Historical Perspectives on the Leadership of Donald Trump: Narcissism and Marketing in an Age of Anxiety and Distrust. Routledge, 2020.  

ABC Political reporter Jane Norman joins RN Breakfast to discuss the latest developments in federal politics.

This week Ellie and Anna reminisce about those weird things we did at school, does anyone remember getting a picture with a random owl on your shoulder or carrying around your PE kit in a Jane Norman bag? Plus, Ellie and Anna talk about going grey and mum guilt.

Visioning A Better America – A Citizens Conference Held in the Halls of Congress April 6th-10th, 2020Aired Tuesday, February 4, 2020 at 2:00 PM PST / 5:00 PM ESTInterview with Consultant and Conference Convener Richard Margolies“If you don’t like the current programming, turn off your TV and tell-a-vision instead.” — Swami BeyondanandaIn these most contentious times, what if there were a way for “we the people” to gather above and beyond the battlefield conversation and focus on the common purpose we share?The Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish. And at this moment, our democratic republic looks awfully perishable. Fortunately, a paradigm-breaking conference happening in Washington, D.C. this April looks to – in the Swami’s words – “bring left and right front and center to face the music and dance together.”As the conference website says, only citizens can change society:“The purpose of the conference is to create a conversation about what we as a people and as a nation can become.”Another quote:“Politicians offer policies that are like medication to cure fears of the future, but these policies only address symptoms. The cure requires a vision of an America based on the values of the Declaration and the Constitution designed for the new reality that is radically different from anything imagined by Jefferson or Hamilton.”Bringing together solutionaries and evolutionaries to “tell a vision” and ground that vision in reality, this conference reflects the “evolution of revolution” from something led by a charismatic leader to something that emerges from the grassroots up and brings forth the uncommon wisdom of common people.Our guest this week is Richard Margolies, conference convener, who has spent more than a half-century as psychologist, political activist, researcher and consultant.Richard Margolies, PhD is a clinical psychologist and leadership consultant. He has worked on numerous research and consulting projects in the US and Europe with Michael Maccoby and other associates over 45 years. Richard consulted to the senior military and civilian leadership of the US Army Corps of Engineers for 15 years. He wrote the Corps’ Learning Organization Doctrine, based on the thinking of the Maccoby Group and Gen. David Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Doctrine. He designed and taught the Corps’ Leadership Course in Districts of the Corps around the US. He has consulted with public, private, and international organizations in the US, Sweden, and Ireland. He worked with Michael Maccoby and associates on the Robert Wood Johnson-funded research on leadership in exemplary healthcare systems. This research was the basis of the Jossey-Bass 2013 book, Transforming Healthcare Leadership, authored by Michael Maccoby, Cliff and Jane Norman, and Richard. He is on the Board of the Lincoln Group of DC, and leads its Lincoln Study Group.If you want to find out how Americans can discover common purpose and then use that purpose to enact policies for the betterment of all, please tune in this Tuesday, February 4th at 2 pm PT / 5 pm ET. http://omtimes.com/iom/shows/wiki-politiki-radio-show/To find out more about Visioning A Better America, please go here: https://www.visioningabetteramerica.com/And now that we ARE back with new shows (and planning a Zoom video element after the first of the year), we invite you to help support Wiki Politiki and our mission to bring about “the great upwising” and functional politics! See below.Support Wiki Politiki — A Clear Voice In The “Bewilderness”If you LOVE what you hear, and appreciate the mission of Wiki Politiki, “put your money where your mouse is” … Join the “upwising” — join the conversation, and become a Wiki Politiki supporter: http://wikipolitiki.com/join-the-upwising/Make a contribution in any amount via PayPal (https://tinyurl.com/y8fe9dks)Go ahead, PATRONIZE me! Support Wiki Politiki monthly through Patreon!Visit the Wiki Politiki show page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/wiki-politiki-radio-show/Connect with Steve Bhaerman at https://wakeuplaughing.com/#RichardMargolies #TransformingHealthcareLeadership #BetterAmerica #SteveBhaerman #WikiPolitiki #Lifestyle

A public lecture presented by Professor Jane Norman on Thursday 21 October 2010. This is the first lecture in the 2010 Medical Detectives lecture series. Jane Norman is Professor of Maternal and Fetal Health at the University and Director of the Tommy’s Centre of Maternal and Fetal Health. Audio version.

21 Clinical trials in pregnancy with Prof. Jane Norman by Professor Allan Gaw

Clinical trials in pregnancy with Prof. Jane Norman by NIHR

"We talk a lot about white guilt, and it is a real phenomenon. ... That guilt is kind of like the wages of privilege. But I'm interested in reframing it through my work, not as guilt, but as shame. Which is a different thing. It is a profoundly different thing." - Sarah-Jane Norman In the fourth episode of season three, we discuss the politically explosive work of Sarah Jane Norman, Aboriginal Australian, queer, non-binary, cross-disciplinary artist. SJ's whole body of work traverses performance, installation, sculpture, text, video, and sound; it is anchored in a multitude of physical disciplines, as well as the written language. SJ has presented their work at Venice International Performance Week, Spill Festival of Live Art, Fierce Festival, In Between Time, Edinburgh Festival, as well as Performance Space, Next Wave, the Australian Experimental Art Foundation, and Brisbane International Festival. A proud Indigenous Australian of both Wiradjuri and European heritage, SJ grew up in Sydney and regional NSW, but today divides their time between Australia and Berlin. Most recently, SJ Norman was one of the artists In Residence with Marina Abramovic in Sydney, and has presented their Unsettling Suite at Melbourne Festival, as part of Dancehouse's Dance Territories program. Looking through their rich body of work, we discuss inheritance of history, continuing transgenerational trauma, and the value of dissecting the effects of the politics of colonization with the artist’s body today. "It's a huge amount of emotional labour that I have to do on a daily basis, not just as an artist, but as a person. But, you know, it's the same kind of emotional labour that every person of colour or Indigenous person has to do, living in a white-dominated society. That is invisible labour. Part of my practice is to make it visible. And to make it clear, the imbalance that exists in the cultural expectations, that we're the only ones who have to do it, and that we're the only ones who have to carry and hold back history." - Sarah-Jane Norman It is hard to speak about this episode, harder than most. Whilst we like to keep our conversations light, perhaps to demistify and disarm the inquiries we posit, it is hard to find a space of levity when we talk about the weight of history that we all carry, some more, some less. "I'm really interested in complicity," says SJ, when describing the artistic labour she performs: "I'm really interested in blurring the line between guilt and complicity." It is a conversation we are very proud of; but oh, how heavy the history can be. Discussed in this episode: is Marina Abramovic a racist?, the futility of guilt, shame as an embodied sensation, Unsettling Suite, fetishisation of oral languages, being fairer than a whitefella, the emotional labour of confronting our colonial past, when people lose it, political performance, the logocentric West, Andrew Bolt, the kids who parrot the biases that their culture teaches them, contemporary Australia, and how there is no context for racism except racism. "Witchcraft, that's how I do it." - Sarah-Jane Norman Enjoy and stay tuned: we have more exciting and stimulating conversations to come. Podcast bibliography: Sarah Jane Norman Responds to Marina Abramovic, SBS, 25 August 2016 Performance artist Marina Abramovic calls Aboriginal Australians 'dinosaurs' in unpublished memoir, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 August 2016 Dance Territories at Melbourne Festival, 14-16 October 2016 Jessi Lewis: What The Water Gave Me, TAGG, 11 October 2016 For more information about Sarah Jane Norman and their work, check out their website. This series of AUDIOSTAGE has been commissioned by DANCEHOUSE as part of the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award Public Program and was generously supported by the Keir Foundation.

A deal to fund the government until Dec. 9 all came down to House Republicans giving in to Democratic demands to help Flint, Michigan, address its contaminated water crisis.  CQ Roll Call’s Managing Editor Adriel Bettelheim and Budget and Economy editor Jane Norman break down the late night deals and what happens after the government once again runs out of money on Dec. 9.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A deal to fund the government until December 9 all came down to House Republicans giving in to Democratic demands to help Flint, Michigan, address its contaminated water crisis. CQ Roll Call’s Managing Editor Adriel Bettelheim and Budget and Economy editor Jane Norman break down the late night deals and what happens after the government once again runs out of money on December  9. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the clock ticking, CQ Roll Call explains the obstacles lawmakers must overcome to reach a temporary solution to fund the government beyond Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends. Proposals such as one introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz could derail negotiations, says CQ Roll Call’s Budget and Economics editor Jane Norman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three weeks before the government runs out of money, Congress has two options: a three-month extension of current spending favored by most lawmakers or a six-month fix pushed by a group of House conservatives, says CQ Roll Call’s Budget and Economics editor Jane Norman. Each option has political advantages and pitfalls, which CQ Roll Call’s senior editor David Hawkings spells out. On another front, soon after lawmakers passed a bill to deal with the epidemic of opioid abuse, CQ Roll Call's health reporter Andrew Siddons says they’re now confronted with the dangerous presence of lab-made synthetic drugs like fentanyl, blamed for hundreds of overdoses, including that of music icon Prince.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite dire warnings that the mosquito-borne Zika virus is poised to become a public health threat, the Senate was unable to overcome partisan bickering to allocate money toward prevention efforts.  Lawmakers, however, voted to help Puerto Rico avoid defaulting on its $72 billion debt. CQ Roll Call’s Adriel Bettelheim and Jane Norman explain what happened and why. @CQNow, @RollCall  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an unexpected move, lawmakers on a House committee backed a proposal to require women to register for the Selective Service, subjecting them to any future military draft. CQ Roll Call’s Jane Norman and National Security Reporter Megan Scully break it down and explain how likely this is to become law.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A two-year agreement to lift budget caps and raise the government’s debt ceiling is speeding through Congress in time to beat a deadline for raising the government’s borrowing authority. But it won’t end bitter ideological fights over government spending and fiscal issues. CQ's Adriel Bettelheim and Jane Norman explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A public lecture presented by Professor Jane Norman on Thursday 21 October 2010. This is the first lecture in the 2010 Medical Detectives lecture series. Jane Norman is Professor of Maternal and Fetal Health at the University and Director of the Tommy's Centre of Maternal and Fetal Health. Audio version.

Professor Jane Norman is Professor of Maternal and Fetal Health at the University and Director of the Tommy’s Centre of Maternal and Fetal Health. Birth is the single event that unites us all. There is still much to learn about this process and there are few treatments when birth goes wrong. Pre-term birth is on the rise. It is the single biggest cause of death and disability amongst babies born in the UK. Maternal obesity is also increasing with associated problems for mothers and babies including increased risk of miscarriage, caesarean section and maternal death. This lecture will trace the detective work used to understand the process of labour and how we can improve outcomes for mums and babies. This lecture is part of the Medical Detectives, a series of public lectures that show how keen detective work is still essential for 21st century doctors: http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/events/medical-detectives/ Recorded on Thursday 21 October 2010 in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at the University of Edinburgh.