Podcasts about pdsa

A seafront bar has closed after its licence was suspended for failing to hand over crucial CCTV footage to police.The lease for the unit in Margate has now gone on the market after the owner failed to give police information about a nearby chemical attack. Also in today's podcast, a devastated dog owner is demanding answers after his much-loved pet died while receiving care from a leading animal charity.The PDSA has launched an investigation into what happened to eight-year-old Diesel amid claims from Lee Taylor that a drugs mix-up occurred.Hundreds of protesters gathered in a Kent town over the weekend for anti-immigration demonstrations.More than 900 people had confirmed their attendance on Facebook for an event titled: ‘Stop the boats now! 10,000+ bikers and friends illegal migrant protest ride to Dover' – you can hear from some of the demonstrators. Frustrated neighbours say gas works outside their homes have made the area “messy, dangerous and noisy” as a five-week road closure begins.Bin collections have also been delayed and driveways blocked due to the network upgrades in Ashford.And in football, Gillingham finished Saturday's game with nine men but Gareth Ainsworth admitted he liked the fighting spirit within his side.You can hear from the manager, as well as fullback Remeao Hutton after the Gills kept their unbeaten streak alive. 

Send us a MessageIn this solo episode of Culture Change RX, Sue Tetzlaff discusses the complexities of leading change within healthcare organizations. She emphasizes the importance of understanding resistance, effective communication, and the need for a structured approach to change management. Sue shares practical tactics for leaders to implement, including anticipating resistance, communicating the reasons behind changes, and the necessity of studying and adjusting post-implementation. The conversation highlights the significance of creating an agile culture to combat change fatigue and achieve high reliability in healthcare settings.Leading change is a core leadership practiceResistance is a natural part of the change process.Anticipate and prepare for resistance to change.Effective communication includes addressing the why behind changes.Celebrate successes and learn from those who adapt well to change.The “study and adjust” phase is crucial for successful change implementation.Creating an agile culture helps reduce change resistance and fatigue.Need help improving the culture, performance, and results of your healthcare organization? If so, let's talk:  https://www.capstoneleadership.net/contact-usAre we connected yet on LinkedIn? https://www.linkedin.com/in/suetetzlaff/13th Annual Healthcare Executive Forum - June 18 (afternoon) and June 19 (morning)High Reliability, Just Culture & Psychological Safety Made Simple focuses on breaking down these critical concepts into practical, actionable strategies tailored for senior leaders in small and rural healthcare settings.

How can we improve attendance when every school has a different process? In this episode, John Dues continues his exploration of Deming's philosophy in action, focusing on chronic absenteeism. As part of their third PDSA cycle, John's team shifts from individual interventions to process standardization—mapping how each of their four campuses handles attendance interventions. The surprising discovery? Each school follows a different process, revealing hidden variation and inefficiencies. By visualizing these systems, the team is not only grasping the current condition but also setting the stage for a reliable, scalable, and effective process. This methodical approach highlights how understanding systems and reducing variation are key to meaningful improvement. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.1 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, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is Mapping the Process. John, take it away.   0:00:26.7 John Dues: Hey Andrew. It's good to be back. Yeah. For the folks that have been following along for the past several episodes we've been working towards defining this problem more narrowly in terms of this chronic absenteeism issue we've been talking about. And for the last few episodes we've been talking about how the team didn't have enough information to write that precise problem statement. And we took a look at gathering additional information by running a couple PDSA cycles in those first two cycles that we've discussed so far. We know we had zeroed in on a handful of students and ran PDSAs with them and their families about their obstacles getting to school. And then we left off talking about how we were going to shift gears in PDSA cycle three. And instead we were going to focus on standardizing our process. So creating a process map for how we intervene with kids with our attendance teams across the network. So that's what the team is currently working on. But just as a sort of quick reminder to folks, and especially if you're watching, we have this model that we've been working through, this four step improvement model where you set the challenge or direction, grasp the current condition, establish your next target condition, and experiment to overcome obstacles.   0:01:48.1 John Dues: And then like we've talked about several times, we're doing this with the team and that includes people working in the system, people with the authority to change or work on the system, and then at least one person with significant knowledge of the System of Profound Knowledge, like an SOPK coach. And we've been using this model that's on the screen to sort of symbolize or I guess visualize what those four steps look like. You're sort of marching up this mountain towards this challenge or direction. And we've also talked about this long range goal that we've had and we've taken a look at some data where we have our chronic absenteeism rate mapped out over the last eight years or so. We have this long range goal. So this is the direction of the challenge where we're trying to take our chronic absenteeism from above 50% down to 5%. We have the data going back to the 2016/17 school year. Then we also talked about how there's this, not surprisingly, there's this sort of pre-pandemic level of chronic absenteeism, which was again too high. It's not where we wanted it, but we have this major shift up where we've seen this significant jump in chronic absenteeism since the pandemic hit.   0:03:15.0 John Dues: So in those four years, 2020/21, 21/22, 22/23 and 23/24 we were up in the 51, 52, even up into the close to the 60% range in chronic absenteeism at the height of the pandemic. So for PDSA cycle three, really doing two things. So, and we're going to talk about this in the episode today. If you remember back way at the start of this series, we looked at something I called a system flowchart. So we'll kind of revisit that and then we're going to take a look at two process maps that were created by two of our school teams to sort of map their current process. And then we'll walk through, sort of we'll take that, we'll walk through what the plan is for this PDSA cycle three. So let's start by looking back at this system flowchart. I'll sort of reorient you to this. So we have up on the, and this is the current state. So up on the top we have the target system which is attendance. And then we have this aim that is sort of a three part aim.   0:04:42.7 John Dues: We want to define strong attendance for students and staff, make sure everybody's on the same page. We want to ensure that students, families and staff have a shared understanding of what it means to have strong attendance. And then we are working on improving and creating systems that identify and remove barriers to strong attendance for students and staff. And then over on the left hand side we have sort of inputs. So these are things that contribute or their conditions that impact our system. And then in the middle we have our core activities. So the things that are happening that impact attendance and then there's outputs, both negative and positive outputs that come out of this system. And then we get feedback from our customers, we do research on this feedback and then we make design if it's a new system or redesign if it's a current system. And some of these things, some of those contributing conditions are, Ohio has a set of transportation laws. You know, there's our school model and our the way we operate our school hours, our expectations regarding student attendance, our various intervention systems, neighborhood dynamics, how far our families live from school.   0:06:03.4 John Dues: These are all things that contribute to our sort of inputs into our system. And then we have these core activities. And remember, we could just zero in on attendance systems. But there are many other parts of our system that impact whether or not kids come to school. So for one, many of our families are always going to be new to our system. So for example, in our middle schools, where they start with sixth grade some number of those kids are going to be from our elementary schools. Some number of those kids are going to come from other neighborhood schools, but they're all going to be new to that middle school. So whether they're coming from our elementary school or not, you have to think about how is the student and family being onboarded to our system. Another thing we're looking at is school culture and trust. You know, how much trust is in there, in the school. Do they have a strong culture between teachers and families or teachers and students, or the principal and teachers? Then there's academic systems how engaging are classes, those types of things.   0:07:05.7 John Dues: Then we have the attendance intervention systems, which is obviously a core focus. We have health and wellness and changes around mindset since we went through the pandemic. And then finally the third sort of, or sorry, the third, not the third, but the sixth core activity that we talked about was transportation. So we've talked about lots of problems with our busing system this year. So that's another thing that has a big impact on attendance. And so what this group, again is working on the core activity is the attendance intervention systems. What's the process for that? But I had mentioned in an earlier episode that we have another group that's working on transportation and busing and how we can improve that. So the whole point of the system flowchart is there's many, many things that go into something like an attendance rate. And many of these things are very challenging. Some are largely out of our control, but much of it is largely in our control. And we're trying to pull the levers that we think are most important when it comes to student attendance.   0:08:09.2 Andrew Stotz: And just one thing on that, one of the things I just find so frustrating and it's part of this class I'm teaching tonight is how do we scale a business. And one of the ways that's critical to scaling is simplifying. And sometimes, like, when I look at all of this complexity, on the one hand, you're like, okay, well, that's our job, right? Our job is to manage complexity. And that's the reason why we don't have a thousand competitors coming in, because it's complex and it's difficult. And on the other hand, it's like the simplifier in me is like, how do we simplify this? You know, like, I'm just curious about how you see complexity versus simplification. And in particular, it may just be in this stage, you're just putting everything up there, and it's just overwhelming. Like, oh, my God, there's so much involved in just fixing one thing, you know? What are your thoughts on that?   0:09:11.5 John Dues: Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a really good question. It's, I mean, I think it is a complex system because there's so many moving parts. And I think part of the nature of a complex system versus something like a complicated system is that when you try to impact some part of the system that has these ripple effects into other parts of the system, many of which are unattended or unintended consequences. So, yeah, I mean, I think one thing we have working in our favor is very stable senior leadership. So we're pretty good at understanding how we all work. We have a pretty good historical knowledge of how our school system has worked over time. And we have a pretty good holistic view of all of this complexity. Not that we're all able to improve it all at once, but I think we have a pretty good grasp of what's going on. And even a team like this there we could move faster perhaps, but I think we're trying to be pretty deliberate about the changes that we're making.   0:10:24.7 John Dues: And we're also deliberate about the levers that we're trying to pull for improvement. And these things change over time. So even something like transportation, I mean, the reason that we're working on that now and that we've chosen to work on that now is because the transportation that we're getting from the district is so untenable. Whereas 15 years ago, when I was a principal in our system, while the busing wasn't perfect, it was pretty consistent. You know, most days it dropped off at about the same time. It picked the kids up at about the same time every day. And while it was nowhere near where you would want it to be overall, it wasn't my biggest pain point as a principal. Now kids are literally missing hours or buses aren't showing up at all. And so we have to figure out a way to make this work. And to your point this was a system when charter schools were set up in Ohio, is just basically like the district, the nearby district, which is usually a big urban district, is going to do the busing for charter schools.   0:11:35.5 John Dues: And there really wasn't any more thought to it than that and so from the district's perspective, they they have to manage a lot of complexity. They have their own schools, they're busing for charters, which there's about 15,000 kids in charter schools in Columbus. And then they're also busing for private schools. And the district itself still has a very large geographic footprint, even though the number of students that attend there are about half what it was 50 years ago. So they have very spread out buildings, some of which are far below capacity, but they still have students attending them. So they haven't shrunk that geographic footprint. So that's a challenge as well. And at a time when it's become very difficult to find bus drivers. So I don't take lightly, like the challenges that the district is facing in this, but we got to get kids to school as a... Just as a basic starting point to be being able to do school well.   0:12:31.8 Andrew Stotz: Okay, keep going.   0:12:33.8 John Dues: I mean, it's also a really good segue. We'll take a look at a couple of the process maps. So we have our four campuses. We have something different going on. So even though our four campuses are geographically pretty proximate to each other, they have four different processes going on with their attendance intervention system. So take a look at this first process map, which is pretty simple from start to finish. What is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It's really nine steps and it really...   0:13:08.6 Andrew Stotz: And for the listeners out there that can't see it, he's got a process map, State Street. And what it shows is some circles and some squares and some tilted squares. I don't know what those are called.   0:13:23.5 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, it's just the circles are the start and end points.   0:13:26.9 Andrew Stotz: Okay.   0:13:27.8 John Dues: The squares are the steps in the process. And then the diamonds are, when there's a... Some decision has to be made in the process.   0:13:37.0 Andrew Stotz: Okay, great.   0:13:38.0 John Dues: So we're not going to go through all of these steps. But if you are watching this is a pretty simple process at one of our campuses, while there are multiple people sort of involved, it's also true that one person is driving a lot of this work. But the point is, especially for people that are watching, when you sort of walk through these 10 steps, you're going to see that this map is going to look very different and less complicated than the map at one of our other campuses. But the point is, especially if you can see things visually that you can tell just by looking at the two maps, there are two very different processes going on. And these two schools, this first one is actually an elementary school that feeds into the middle school. That is the map that we'll look at second, so this is the first process map. And then when we look at the second map, we can see very quickly, just visually speaking, there are far more steps, it's far more complicated. There's far more decision points. There's a lot more detail here, and there's a lot of interfacing between multiple people that all play a role in this particular process.   0:14:55.4 John Dues: And it's not that one is right and one is wrong. It's just that when you have these two campuses doing it differently, there very likely is inefficiencies.   0:15:06.8 Andrew Stotz: And are they mapping the same thing? And they...   0:15:10.6 John Dues: Yes, it's the same process. It's how they intervene as the state requires for kids that have some type of attendance issue. And there's different thresholds that mean different parts of the process kick in as a result. But they're operating within the same state process that you have to follow. But even so, you can see that they have a very different sort of illustration of what that process looks like. And if I had the other two campuses, we'd have four separate versions. And remember all these steps and you know, all these decision points. There's documents that exist. There's meetings that happen. There's agendas for those meetings. There's agendas for meeting with parents. There's letters that have to be mailed. And so you can imagine if everybody is creating separate forms, separate meeting agendas, keeping this information in different ways. There's probably a way to design this that's far more effective and efficient by pulling from the four different processes to create one process. And oh, by the way, if you do that, it makes training easier for anybody new that's going to take on some of the clerical roles or some of the interfacing with parents.   0:16:26.9 John Dues: And then if you have one process that you're working from, then you can also share best practices as they emerge as you're working. But if you have four variants, it's much harder to share that information.   0:16:43.4 Andrew Stotz: And you know, it's questionable whether this is a core function. It is an important process. Is it the core?   0:16:54.8 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a, I guess depending on how you define core. I mean, it's a required process. It's a process that the state requires and a lot of the sub steps are required components. Now, interestingly, this, the setup for this attendance intervention system came out of some legislation called Health...House Bill 410. And it's been in place for maybe five years or so, four or five years. And they're changing it right now. So there's new language.   0:17:30.2 Andrew Stotz: Just when we got it set.   0:17:32.2 John Dues: Just when we got it set. But we at least know the likely changes that are coming. So Ohio operates on a two year budget cycle. So in this new budget that will likely pass on. Well, it has to pass by June 30th. Right now there's language in there that changes this process for schools and actually gives schools way more leeway. So we'll sort of be ahead of the game because we're going to have our own process mapped and you know, we can remove some of those things that are a little more cumbersome on the school teams. And to your point, those things that were compliance related but didn't have really impact on improving attendance, we could just remove those now. We'll have some more freedom there.   0:18:13.8 Andrew Stotz: I mentioned about the core thing because there's a great book I read called Clockwork by Michael Michalowicz and he talks about identifying what is the core function in your business and then really focusing in on that. And it's interesting because one of the benefits of that is that if you don't do that, you can get caught up in every process like, and then all of a sudden it's just everything is seen as equal.   0:18:43.6 John Dues: Right. Yeah.   0:18:44.6 Andrew Stotz: Anyways, keep going.   0:18:45.9 John Dues: Yeah, it's one of those weird things and I'll stop sharing. Yeah, that was the last visual. But that's one of those things where like I said for the last five years or so these things have been required. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find a school system that would say these, the way things are outlined as requirements for schools to do on this front are not effective but people do them because they're required. And you know, I think with this updated language, we'll have some more flexibility to do this how we want to do it.   0:19:20.4 Andrew Stotz: And how does this, just to clarify how it fits into that mountain diagram, this is trying to assess or deal with the obstacle or is this the current state? I noticed that it said current state for the process map. But is the purpose of what you're... The original one you show. But is the purpose of what you're doing trying to overcome the, identify and overcome the obstacle?   0:19:46.8 John Dues: Well, I would say this is a part of grasping that current condition. You know, we did that early on in terms of that system flowchart, in terms of what the whole system looks like. And now what we're doing is learning about the processes at each individual school. Well, I'd say when you map out a process like this, and I think people would probably, my guess is, is that senior leaders would often say, well, no, we have a process and you know, everybody follows the same thing. And then if you actually mapped it like that, step by step, what you would see is tons of variation, tons of variation.   0:20:23.9 Andrew Stotz: So one of the benefits of that is it's not only, it's about facing the reality or understanding the true current state. Like everybody can say, no, no, no, we all know what the current situation is. No, we don't.   0:20:41.2 John Dues: No, you don't. And every time I sit with a team and make these process maps, we'll say, okay, what's the next step? And you know, maybe a couple people will pipe up and then someone inevitably goes, well, no, wait a second, that's not what we do. What we do next is X, Y or Z. I mean, it's... And that happens over and over and over again with this with this process just seems to be a part of it. It's not a bug. It's actually a feature of this mapping exercise.   0:21:08.5 Andrew Stotz: And many people try to solve these problems by just jumping in rather than taking the time to really, truly understand the current state. You know, what's the risk of the action taker?   0:21:22.7 John Dues: Well, yeah, I mean, I think what happens a lot of times is like when people don't really understand a process like this is they start blaming people for things that aren't going right. That's what typically happens.   0:21:35.8 Andrew Stotz: I want people to take responsibility around here.   0:21:38.3 John Dues: We have to hold people accountable, but you can't hold them accountable to a process that's unknown. Right. It's not well specified, but that's what typically happens. So, so yeah, so the objective for this PDSA cycle, so we're on this third cycle. So those first two were focused on talking to individual kids, interviewing with individual kids. And we said well let's actually look at our process for how we're intervening from a school perspective as a team at each of the schools and let's standardize that process.   0:22:13.1 John Dues: So that's what we're doing. We're sort of mapping it from start to finish, gathering feedback from key stakeholders as we sort of map a standardized process that works across all four schools. And really one of the things that we're doing right now is we're saying can we develop a process? And we have these four dimensions that we're looking for to sort of meet. One is functional, one is, is it reliable? Third, to your point about the business talk you're giving tonight is is it scalable? You know, does it work across the entire school and across the entire school system? And then is it effective? And we're basically, the attendance improvement team basically is going to put together the process and then they're going to put it in front of our senior leaders and we're going to rate sort of the process across those four dimensions and they've sort of predicted what they think is going to, how it's going to hold up when it's sort of tested by those senior leaders.   0:23:12.8 John Dues: So that's kind of what we're doing right now. So step one is mapping the four campuses and then we're going to map one standardized process, at least a rough draft. And again, so once that initial network wide or system wide map is created, we're going to put it in front of that senior leadership group. We're going to give them a brief survey, sort of a Likert scale across those four dimensions and see, see what they think basically. So that's our next step right now.   0:23:40.6 Andrew Stotz: Exciting, exciting. I want to tell a little story to wrap up my contribution here and that is after many years of living in Asia, I started to realize that everything's connected in Asia, people are connected. If you want to be mean to somebody, it's going to come back around to you. And if you want to push on somebody, it's going to come back around because everybody knows everybody. And I like to picture it like a circle. Let's just say a bunch of people in a circle facing the same direction. And then let's say they all put their right arm on the right shoulder of the man or woman in front of them. So now we have a circle that's connected in such a way. And if you think you're going to get something done by squeezing on the shoulder of the person in front of you, the problem you're going to face is that that's going to transmit all the way around the circle until all of a sudden you're going to be squeezed. And that is my visualization of the way influence works in Asia. Yeah, but I feel like it's the same type of thing when you just say, I want to hold people accountable and we need responsibility around here.   0:24:57.8 Andrew Stotz: What ends up happening is that the only choice that someone has is just to squeeze on the person in front of them. And when they do that, it just transmits a squeeze all the way around. It builds fear, it builds distrust and all of that. And so that. That was a visualization I was having when you were talking.   0:25:16.4 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, I think... And it can be convicting a little bit there. There's a Dr. Deming quote that I'll share to sort of wrap this. Before I do that, I think again, I go back to we... There are these unknown things about how to improve attendance. And so this PDSA, this plan, do study, act cycle, we're using one, again, was intervening with kids and trying to work with a handful of kids that had attendance issues and just see what works and what doesn't. We've shifted gears in this third cycle to something very different. But this is all part of one comprehensive effort by this team to put this new system in place. And all of these pieces of information are important, but this and this mapping, the process thing I think is a great... And I think maybe a lot of people wouldn't think about that as a PDSA to plan a new process, but you can absolutely use it in that way. But the Dr. Deming quote that I think of when I do process mapping is "if you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."   0:26:21.7 John Dues: And I think that's true. Again, it's not to convict people, but I think often when we say, well, that's this thing is going wrong, we need to hold people accountable. And then you ask that person that's making that claim, well, what is the process for this thing? And they often can't tell you. Or they do, it's so vague that nobody could.   0:26:45.3 Andrew Stotz: Or they say, that's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to hold you accountable for getting the result.   0:26:51.4 John Dues: Right. Yeah. And, and, and many people, many organizations don't write these things down. You know, they don't write them down and share them with folks. So that's just some of these simple things are as part of the power making things exciting.   0:27:05.1 Andrew Stotz: Exciting. Well, yeah, how about we wrap it up there and so what are we going to get next time?   0:27:10.7 John Dues: Yeah, I think so. What we went through quickly here at the end was the plan for this PDSA cycle. So by the time we get back together, will have the process map for the system and we'll have had the feedback back and we'll be able to compare that to what the group predicted.   0:27:28.8 Andrew Stotz: So ladies and gentlemen, we're watching it in real time unfold the applications of Dr. Deming's principles. And isn't that what we want? You know, obviously we love theory and we love ideas, but we really need to be all thinking about how we apply these things. And so from my perspective, I'm really enjoying this series and I'm learning a lot. And as I mentioned before, I've been improving some of my thinking and some of my teaching in particular, based upon the discussions that we've had. So on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion and for listeners remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And also you can find John's book, Win Win: W. Edwards Deming the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on Amazon.com This is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. I know you've heard it before, but I'm going to say it again. Until we have joy. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Why would any leader choose to take on a transformation that requires rethinking how they lead, how their organization functions, and how they learn? In this episode, we dive deeper with Cliff Norman and David Williams, co-authors of Quality as an Organizational Strategy, exploring Chapter 11: “Getting Started.” They share powerful stories, practical steps, and the deep-rooted challenges leaders face when shifting from conventional methods to building true learning organizations grounded in Dr. Deming's philosophy. This conversation highlights why improvement cannot be delegated, why leadership transformation is essential, and how to begin the journey—with clarity, commitment, and courage. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.1 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 are going to continue our conversation with Dave Williams and Cliff Norman about their book Quality as an Organizational Strategy. I found this book fascinating because I think it's addressing something where there's been a bit of a hole and that is how do we think about the strategy of our business? And so we already had our conversation in a prior episode about the overview of the book, but today we're going to be talking about specifically, now this is kind of funny because we're going to be talking about the back of the book and that is chapter 11, getting started. Dave, why don't you take it away?   0:00:53.3 Dave Williams: Well, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having us back on the Deming podcast. So, as you mentioned, part of the way that the book is laid out is that it describes kind of the foundations that are behind quality as an organizational strategy and begins sort of with an introduction that explains a good bit about how Dr. Deming had this provocation of a need for leaders to transform the way that they approach leading organizations. And part of that was to move not just from process based improvement projects, but to start to think about major systems in the organization and to pursue quality as the overall strategy and create a continuous improvement organization or learning organization. And so the book lays some of the foundation behind the science of improvement or behind profound knowledge that underpin the thinking, walks through quality as an organizational strategy, as a method of five interdependent activities. Then at the end it comes back full circle to say, well, this is great, now you've learned about these theories and methods. But a natural question for any leader would be, how do I get started? And one of the first things that we talk about in that section actually is about why leaders would want to do this transformation.   0:02:30.9 Dave Williams: And this actually came from a conversation that Lloyd and Cliff and I had in 2020 where we were talking about getting on this journey of building the book. And we all kind of recognized that this was really, really hard work. And we were curious or we, we didn't have a good answer of what was our theory about why somebody would deviate from the way in which they work today and embark on a transformational change of the way that they approach leadership, the way that they approach organizations. And actually I ended up going on a journey of interviewing a whole host of leaders who had been influenced by Deming, who had been involved in improvement in healthcare, folks like Dr. Berwick and Paul Batalden and Brent James. I interviewed some folks in the UK and other places, like John Seddon, and asked them, oh and I should Blaine Godfrey, who had been the lead of the Durand Institute, and I posed the question, what causes somebody to want to embark on this change? And many people actually had a hard time articulating it. But the answer that emerged, or actually Blaine Godfrey was the one that kind of framed it the best, I think, for us, was a number of things.   0:03:57.7 Dave Williams: Sometimes it's something like a book like this comes out and people read it and it's interesting and new. Sometimes it's an event happens, a patient safety event or a major accident or something of which causes people to have to change or do something different. Sometimes it's a discouragement with a desire that you know you could do better, but you don't have methods or know how to. So there were a host of things that we listed, and those are some of a sample of them that might invite somebody to say, the way that we're working today is not getting us to the level that we want to. And now we want to embark on something different. And we might look to something like quality as an organizational strategy as a method for us to transform the way that we're working and build on the shoulders of Deming's philosophy and the science of improvement and do it differently.   0:04:56.0 Andrew Stotz: And when I look at the book, you guys are bringing together a lot of different stuff. It's not just a Deming book. It's Deming is a part of this, and that's fascinating. One of the questions I have is when we look at, let's say, a business owner, a business leader is looking for answers, as you said, maybe it's an event, maybe it's a discouragement, maybe it's a feeling like we can do better. Maybe it's just being beaten by competitors. They come to a point where they start looking for answers and they find some fantastic books, authors, ideas, consultants, all this and I think about whether that's Peter Drucker or whether that's the Lean movement or whether that's, let's say Taguchi or something like that is the teachings that you guys are talking about - and I'm going to specifically ask about the teachings of Dr. Deming. Is it more or is it more difficult or less difficult to implement than other books or styles or methods that someone's going to come across?   0:06:08.7 Cliff Norman: I have to quote one of my colleagues here who probably knew about more about Deming than anybody in API or all of us combined, that's Ron Moen, who did, I think it was 88 seminars, four-day seminars with Dr. Deming. Dr. Deming once told him, he said, Ron, I believe you've been to more of these and I've been to. And it's kind of a joke. He had a great sense of humor. But you know, Ron told me the problem with Deming is he's asking us to change. And there's all sorts of things out there that require the management and the leadership, they really don't have to do anything different. And there are several things out there. In fact, Philip Crosby, one of the three gurus during when they launched, he was more the evangelical and had a way of talking to management so that they understood it, which that was his contribution to all that. But when Six Sigma came up and black belts and all that, and Crosby looked at him and says, that's not going to change the system. He said, all you're doing is killing a bear for management, killing a bear for management, and then you'll get a black belt.   0:07:19.9 Cliff Norman: You know, And I thought, wow that's pretty profound. Because the management at that point doesn't have to do anything, just have the black belt ceremony. There's absolutely no change on their part. Where Deming, as Ron says, he's kind of a pain. You've got to learn about variation, you got to learn about Shewhart charts. You've got to be able to put together a family of measures for your organization. You've got to understand your organization's system. You need to understand psychology, you need to understand theory of knowledge and how people learn how they change. And nothing else out there puts that on leaders. And so that was a question that Dave was lending back to. Why would somebody do this to themselves? You know, why would they take on this whole extra thing to learn and all the rest of it. And for the people that I know that have made that, that bridge, the pure joy that they get and the rewards they get from people who are learning and that they're leading and that they're changing and they're able to go to other organizations and repeat this and call them up and say, thank you so much for helping me learn how to be a real leader.   0:08:35.8 Cliff Norman: I mean, that's the reward in it. But it requires a real change on the part of the leader. And I don't know of anything else, Andrew, that actually requires that kind of in depth change. And there was one of our leaders, Joe Balthazar, he had Jane and I do four years in a row with his leadership team, teach them the science of improvement. The same curriculum, same leaders, four years in a row. And the second year I was doing it, I said, don't we need... No, no, Cliff, I want you to do exactly what you did last year. He said, it takes years for people to understand this. And I thought, wow, this is unbelievable. But on the fourth year, the VP of sales walked up to me and he says, I think I figured it out. And I thought, wow. And it does it literally... Because you've got to depart from where you've been and start thinking about how you're going to change and let go of what's made you successful up to this point. And that's hard, that's hard for anybody to do.   0:09:47.2 Cliff Norman: And anybody's been through that four day seminar knows when they crossed that path that all of a sudden they had to say, you know what I've been doing, I can see where I've been, the problem and not the solution. And that's tough for us. That really is tough. And Deming says you have to give up that guilt trip. And once you understand the theory of variation, once you understand systems, once you understand psychology and theory of knowledge, it's time then for you to move on and let go of the guilt. I hope that makes sense. But that's the difficulty in this.   0:10:17.6 Andrew Stotz: It reminds me of two, it made me think about two things. I mean, I was just a 24 year old guy when I attended the seminars that I did, and they weren't even four day. I think they were two-day ones at Quality Enhancement Seminars in, what was it, George Washington, I think. But the point that I remember, as just a young guy who I was, I pretty much admired all these business leaders. And then to see Dr. Deming really nail em to the wall and say it's about you changing. And whether he was saying that directly or whether that he was implying that through the Red Bead experiment or other things, it's about you shaping the system. That really blew me away because I had already read some books and I was pretty excited. And then it also made me think about, let's say there's a really good book, I would say Good to Great by Jim Collins that highlights some things that you can do to succeed and make your business better. And you can just buy that book and hand it to your management team and go, hey, implement what you learned from this book.   0:11:20.8 Andrew Stotz: Whereas with the Deming book, it's like there's just so much more to it. So I guess the answer to this is it is more takes time. There's more thinking going on. And I think that's part of the whole point of what your book does, is to help us map it out. So why don't we go through and think about this and kind of maybe step by step through what is the starting point and how do we go?   0:11:45.4 Cliff Norman: Andrew, I just got to add to what you just said there and go back to Joe Balthazar at Hallmark Building Supplies. He shared with me that, and he's the one that said I want you to do these four year seminars dedicated Deming's idea of Profound knowledge. And he said, Cliff, the day I made it, I knew I'd made it. Is my son Joey spilled his milk. He's about three years old. And he said, I started to do my normal leap across the table and he said I was about mid air. And I thought, oh my, this is what they do. This is part of their system. This is common. And I'm treating this like it's special. And that was so profound for him. And when, when you move beyond the Shewhart chart and you see events in your life around you relative to the theory of variation, common and special cause variation at a deep way like that, that's the kind of transformation you want to see in a leader. And Joe will tell you he's forever grateful for Deming and everything he's learned, and I think that's the reward. But people need to be willing to go on that journey, as Dave was saying.   0:12:53.0 Andrew Stotz: So Dave, why don't you walk us through a little bit of what you guys are teaching in that chapter.   0:13:00.3 Dave Williams: Sure. Well, one of the next steps obviously is if somebody, if a leadership team thinks that they want to go on this journey, there's some considerations they got to think about. As we've already sort of alluded to or touched on, this is a leadership responsibility and a leadership change. And so there's got to be will amongst the leadership team in order to say we want to work together and work hard to do this work. That this is not something that, similar to Cliff's example of say, having black belts, that we can just hand it off, somebody else will do it, and we can just keep going about our business and hope. It's important that leaders spend time recognizing and thinking about the fact that this is going to involve them doing work, doing effort, changing the way that they think, changing the way that they practice. And I like to say it's good hard work. I mean it's going to be something that's deeply rewarding. But it does require them to have that will. And with will then it's going to come time and energy, right? They've got to make the space, they've got to create regular routines and opportunities for them to learn just in terms of content, learn in terms of practice or application and learn in the process of doing the improvement work and doing the change to the way that they work in the organization.   0:14:38.0 Dave Williams: So there's going to be a need to build in that ability. And then a third thing is to ask whether you think this is something that you can do on your own or whether it might be useful to have help. And help may be an internal, a consultant, but likely not to promote consulting it but, but there's a good chance that you're going to need somebody that has both experience in improvement and helping people do results-driven improvement as well as somebody who has experience doing system wide change through a lens like QOS. And, and the advantage of that often is it it gives you as a leadership team to focus in on your job of thinking and looking and learning and allow somebody else to be an external intervener, somebody who comes in and creates some of the support, some of the context, some of the ways that can make it easier for you to step back and look at your organization in a different way. And so many times those are some of the things that should be considered as teams working through it. Cliff, what would you add or improve upon.   0:16:07.3 Cliff Norman: The idea of external help. Deming was pretty black and white about that. I was kind of surprised. I went back and read one of his quotes. He said, "I should mention also the costly fallacy held by many people in management that a consultant must know all about a process in order to work on it. All evidence is exactly the contrary. Competent men in every position, from top management to the humblest worker know all there is to know about their work except how to improve it. Help towards improvement can come only from outside knowledge." And I was reflecting on that today with Jane who's been involved in this for 40 plus years also. I said Jane, when he said that, I think it was accurate because at that time she and I were going to Duran seminars. There's only two books out there with methods. One was Ishikawa's book on Guide to Quality Control. And the other was Feigenbaum's book. And then of course you had Duran's book on The Quality Handbook, which was a nice doorstop. But there wasn't that much knowledge about improvement. And the worst part where Deming was really getting to was there's very few people you'd run into that actually under the Shewhart methods and charts and understand the difference between special and common cause variation.   0:17:27.0 Cliff Norman: And so you had to bring that kind of knowledge in from the outside. And frankly, we've had people go off the rails here. You know, Dr. Deming in the teaching of statistics has identified analytic studies which is focused on looking at data over time and trying to understand that and simple methods and approaches and then what he calls enumerative statistics, which is use of T tests, F tests and all the rest of it, which assumes that under the IDD principle that data is independent and identically distributed. Well, if you have any special causes in the data set, it blows up both of those assumptions and the use of those methods doesn't offer any help in prediction. And as Dr. Deming often said, prediction is the problem. And then go back to Shewhart. And Shewhart said, things in nature are inherently stable, but man-made processes are inherently unstable. So when Dave and I first do a Shewhart chart for a client, we don't expect for it to be stable. We expect for to have special causes. And as Dr. Deming said and also Dr. Juran, that when you get a stable system, that in and of itself is an achievement, that means nobody's messing around with the system anymore.   0:18:43.0 Cliff Norman: And you see this in the simplest things, like in an office, somebody will walk in and they think that their body is the standard for what the internal temperature should be for that room. So then they walk up and they start tampering with the thermostat. And by the end of the day everybody's irritated because we've had so many bodies up there with their standard. Moving the funnel on us here, and just leaving it alone would probably all be better off. But you have to learn that. And I think that's what Dr. Deming was saying, is that that kind of knowledge is going to come from the outside. Now the good news is is that since he wrote that in 1986, we've got a lot of people out there and some of them are in organizations that do understand the Shewhart methods and can understand the difference between common and special cause variation. They do understand the difference between a new and analytic studies and statistics and they can be of help. So the Deming Institute has a room full of these people show up, but they're at their gatherings annually. So we're a lot further along than we were in 1986.   0:19:45.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. So let's go through that for just a second. Some considerations you've talked about. You know that it's a leadership change. Right. And you gotta ask yourself, are we ready to work on this? And you know, this is not a hands-off thing. The second thing you talked about is time and energy. Are we ready to make the space for this? We have to have regular meetings. You know, we've gotta really... There's some work involved here. And then the third part you've talked about is outside help. And you mentioned about this story of Joe Balthazar and how he asked you to do the same topic over and over for four years. And imagine if he was telling his team, let's meet and try to implement some of this stuff on our own. Everybody dig into a book and then let's try. It would be very difficult to make that kind of progress compared to bringing an outside person. Which also brings me to the last thing that you said, Cliff, which was the idea that Dr. Deming had mentioned, that you need an outside person to truly change something. Everybody's got the expertise on the inside.   0:20:44.5 Cliff Norman: I appreciate you summarizing that because my job and working with Joe and leadership team, I was meeting with him every month. But what the four years that Jane and I spent were the next levels of his leadership. You know, it wasn't the leadership team. And I'm glad you brought that up because it was the very next level that he wanted exposed to this and the VP of sales that came in, he was new, so he had to be part of this group because he wasn't there originally. And so there was that ongoing... He wanted that next generation that was going to take over for him and the others to really understand this. So I'm glad you summarized that for me to help.   0:21:30.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And I think one of the starting points too, I mean, the body of work, not just this book, but the other books that you guys have been involved in and produced provide a lot of the starting points for this. So there's a lot there. Dave, where do we go after these considerations? And the people say, okay, yeah, leadership says, we want to make this change. We're ready to make some time for it. We're willing to get outside support and help. Where do we go next.   0:21:57.7 Dave Williams: Right. Well, one thing that we typically invite a leadership team to do is to take kind of a self assessment of where they sort of see their baseline in relation to the methods and activities of QOS. So in chapter one of the book, there's actually a table that is 10 different categories. And then each leader takes it independently and they rate their level of agreement with different definitions from 0 to 10. 0 being this really isn't present, and 10 is, I'm very, very far along on this journey that in the book that's out now, there's a summarized table, it's on a page. But actually in the QOS field guide that we're working on publishing this year, there's a much more detailed version that we use in practice that has deeper definitions, but basically it works its way through purpose and leadership and systems thinking and measurement and all the things that are tied into QOS and what... And as I mentioned, we have each individual member of the leadership team take it independently and then we bring those scores together to learn together.   0:23:32.5 Dave Williams: And there's different ways in which you can display it. In the book, we show an example of a leadership team's scatter plot where it shows the rating and then it also shows the standard deviation amongst that exists between the leadership team. It's very, very common for leaders to not be in agreement in terms of their score in each of the different areas. You know what I said, It's a 0 to 10 scale. Typically, in my experience using the tool, people tend to be between a 2 and a 6 and hovering around a 2 or a 4. But it sort of looks like a buckshot or shotgun blast where there's a very... If you were to put dots where everybody scores, where there's variation that exists. And that's good because it's useful for the team to pause and think about why they assess the organization the way that they did. Looking at it through this new lens, where are the places that there's agreement and also where are the places that there's variation? And that helps them to be able to think about the fact that through this process, they're likely to both improve their assessment of the organization, but also increase their agreement about where they are and what they need to do to move forward and what they need to do to improve.   0:25:05.2 Dave Williams: And so that's a useful starting point, gets everybody kind of on the same page, and it's something that we can use at intervals as one of the ways to continually come back and evaluate progress towards the destination of pursuing quality as an organizational strategy.   0:25:23.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I mean, I imagine that self assessment, it helps you too when you work with companies to be able to really understand, okay, here are starting point with this company is really, they just really don't know much about all of this stuff, whereas you'll have some other clients that basically, wow, okay, there's a lot of knowledge here about it, but how's the implementation and all that? So are we ready to change? Are we prepared to devote the time and energy? Are we going to get outside help? And where are we now? What's our starting point that's great to help us understand exactly how you step through it. What comes next?   0:26:03.5 Cliff Norman: Well, in that very first milestone, in that table, is it table three, Dave? Anyway, the very first milestone is to establish formal improvement efforts. And the reason for that is that unless people experience what it takes to develop, test and implement changes in the organizations, they really can't appreciate the structure that comes with quality as an organizational strategy. Because it's very difficult for many organizations to launch three or four improvement efforts and then bring them to fruition. And there's all sorts of stuff that happens. And then you find out very quickly whether you have managers or leaders, and organizations they've brought me in, they say, let's do some leadership training. I said, no, let's just do some improvement and then we'll find out if we have leaders or not. And one group, I won't mention who it was, but they had five people on their leadership team and they had to replace two of them because they found out they couldn't actually manage an improvement effort. And then the CEO was wondering how they actually manage their organization, which they weren't either. And so it's a rather, it's an important test in the front.   0:27:22.2 Cliff Norman: But as Dr. Juran says, it's real important to develop the habit of improvement. And if you don't know what that is, if you've never experienced it, then it's hard to say to people, gee, I need a purpose that aligns my improvement efforts. I need to understand my system so I know where those improvements are going on. I need to build an information system, get information from customers outside, people inside. I need to put together a strategic plan that actually makes improvements on purpose. That's a lot of work. And once you understand how complicated it can get in terms of just doing three or four improvement efforts and then all of a sudden you got a portfolio of 30 to do your strategic plan. Now that needs some structure, that needs some guidance and all the rest of it. But I'll just go back one step further. My own journey. I was sent by Halliburton at Otis Engineering to go see Dr. Deming 1982 in February. And coming back, I had an audience with the president of our organization, Purvis Thrash. And I went on and on about Dr. Deming. He said, Cliff, you know what I'd like to have? I said, what's up, Mr. Thrash?   0:28:27.5 Cliff Norman: He says, if you'll take this 50 million dollar raw material problem and solve this for me, I'll be a happy man and I'll give you all the quality you want. But go take care of that problem for me first and then come back to me and talk about Deming and Juran and anything else you want to talk about. So I put together four or five people and over about three months we solved his 50 million dollar raw material problem. And then he had a meeting of all executives and I was sitting with the managers in the back row and he called me to the front and he says, Cliff, will you sign this card right here? And I says, well Mr. Thrash, what is this? He says, well, I'm giving you authority to sign $50,000 anytime you need it to get all the quality we can stand here at Otis Engineering. One of the vice presidents said, well, I don't have that authority. He said, you didn't save me $50 million. You know, but once that happens, Andrew, once you do that, then you've got people that are willing to help you. And then once that takes place, I can't tell you how important, it allowed me then to bring in Lloyd Provost to help me.   0:29:36.2 Cliff Norman: And they weren't about to pay out money. They didn't like consultants, in fact, they were anti-consultant. But you saved us $50 million. I gave you $50,000. And Lloyd doesn't make that much. So get him in here, do whatever you need to go do. And I just think it's so critical that we have that demonstration project that people understand at the leadership level what we're talking about when we talk about design and redesign of the system.   0:30:00.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. I mean, I appreciate in the book you're talking about this concept. I'm not going to call it quick wins, but the idea is we need to get results. You know, this isn't just about talking about stuff so that's one thing that as you just illustrated, that's one point. The second thing you mentioned, is this person a leader or a manager? You know, and I think for the listeners or viewers out there, they're probably... When they heard you say that, they're probably thinking. Okay, wait a minute. Are my team managers or leaders? How do I know? What would you say? What differentiates the two?   0:30:37.2 Cliff Norman: I was fortunate to hang around Dr. Maccabee, as Deming did, and I asked Dr. Maccabee that question. He said, Cliff it's actually pretty easy. He said leaders have followers, and if you have followers, you can be anywhere in the organization, be a leader, but if you don't have followers, you're not a leader. You might be a manager with authority. You're not a leader.   0:31:02.7 Andrew Stotz: Can I ask a little bit more on that? So I'm thinking about my own business, which is a coffee factory, and I have people that are running the business, but I also have people that are running departments like the roasting department. And that area when they're overseeing this and they're doing a very good job and they're keeping things up and all that. How do I understand in a sense you could say, are they followers? Well, not really. They're people working for them and they have a good time and so do I view that person as not necessarily a leader, but more of a manager, or how do I look at it in my own company?   0:31:35.5 Cliff Norman: It could be a manager, which is essential to the organization. And that's another big difference. You see, the leader can't delegate their relationship with the people who are followers. You can't do that any more than a teacher can dedicate her class to a substitute teacher. Anybody that's ever watched that knows that chaos is getting ready to break out here because that teacher has a relationship with those students. She knows them all in a big way. And when the substitute comes in is game time in most classrooms and so forth, the managers have skills and things that they're applying and they can actually delegate those. Like when I was a foreman, I could have somebody come in and take over my department and I say assign all my people tomorrow. And they could do that. Now, in terms of the people that I was leading that saw me as a leader in that department, they didn't have that relationship.   0:32:30.2 Cliff Norman: But management or skills and necessary things to make the organization run like you're talking about, the coffee is not going to get out the door unless I have people with subject matter knowledge and competent managers to make sure that the T's are getting crossed, the I's dotted and the rest of it. But the leadership of the organization that has followers, that's a whole different person. And I think it's important. That could be anywhere in the organization. Like I had at Halliburton, I had a VP of engineering. Everybody went to him, everybody. He had 110 patents. You know, he built that system. He built the whole organization. So the CEO did not have the followers that the VP of engineering had. And it was well earned. It's always earned, too.   0:33:16.7 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Okay, that's great. Leaders have followers. Leaders cannot delegate their authority. They have a different relationship.   0:33:24.0 Cliff Norman: They can't delegate the relationship.   0:33:25.8 Andrew Stotz: The relationship. Okay.   0:33:27.4 Cliff Norman: Yeah. Very important.   0:33:34.3 Andrew Stotz: So now let's go back to what, where we were. So we were saying some of the considerations. Are we ready to change? Are we prepared to devote the time and energy? Are we ready to get outside help and where are we now? And that self assessment that you talked about helps us to understand what's our starting point. I always tell a joke with my students about this when I talk about. I'd say, imagine you go to London and you're going to go visit your friend and you call your friend up, you say, I've arrived and I'm calling from a phone booth and just tell me how to get there. And the friend says, well, where are you? And you say, I'm not really sure. Well, do you see anything around you? Yeah, well, there's lots of buildings, but I don't really, you know. Well, do you see any names of any streets? No, I don't really see anything. But just tell me how to get there. There's something missing. If we don't know where we are, it's very difficult to get to where we're going. So now we understand where we are. We got that scatter plot that you guys have that you've talked about. Dave, where do we go next?   0:34:26.6 Dave Williams: Well, so Cliff already mentioned one of the fundamentals. And sometimes I think this is something that people struggle with because they want to jump into something new. But one of the best starting points is to focus in on improvement. And there's a number of different reasons for that. So one is that I don't know about you all, but in my experience, if I ask people, like, hey, I want to create some improvement projects and get started on improvement, I always tell people, like, if you remember the old Stephen Covey exercise where he put the rocks and the stones and the sand into a jar and poured water. And like you would do it in different orders. And I'm fascinated that people will stare at the big rocks or the things that are right in front of them, or the things that are on their agenda, or the things that are part of their strategy. And then they'll look to the side and grab some rare event or some extra thing that isn't related to that, but they've always wanted to work on. And where we try to focus people's attention is one, what are you already working on? Can you look through your and ask around, what are the things that are currently in play, projects that exist? And sometimes we won't ask, what improvement projects do you have? Because if you do that, you get a short list.   0:35:51.4 Dave Williams: Those are the things that people defined as an improvement effort, or maybe use some kind of framing to decide it was an improvement project. It may be better to in the beginning of the book, in the first chapter, we talk about different ways that you improve. And there's designing and redesigning a process. There's designing and redesigning a service or a product. There's changing a whole system. And so it can be useful to say, well, what are we doing in these areas? And that may actually create a bigger list of the various things where people are working on something that's about change to the system that may lend itself to be better activated through firing it up as an improvement project. And then, of course, there's a good chance that any organization, especially if they've done some kind of strategic planning, have some strategic objectives or some strategic priorities which they've committed to or already said, these are the things we're going to work on. So kind of crowdsourcing or bringing those together helps us to potentially find the early portfolio of projects without having to look much further, without having to say, what else do you want to work on.   0:37:07.0 Dave Williams: And then if we've got that, if we've got that list, a second thing that we can do is invite people to use the three questions of the model for improvement and reflect on can you answer these three questions? Do you know what you're trying to accomplish? Do you know how a change will result in improvement? Do you know what changes you'll make? What's your theory about how you'll get to improvement? And so having a list of the things that are already present or existing may be one first step. Another second step in the firing up a portfolio of improvement projects is asking the three questions for the model for improvement. And then a third one, if it's an active project is we have a project progress scale that you might use that can help you gauge. So I've got a project where is it on its journey towards achieving its aim or getting results? Those three can help us to sort of get a sense of the work that is at hand and that has already been sort of started in some fashion that is already in progress and maybe to get a sense of the level of definition and the progress that exists.   0:38:22.3 Dave Williams: They may not be the right projects, but that's a good place to start before trying to create new ones. And I'll hand it to you, Andrew.   0:38:30.4 Andrew Stotz: I find that interesting. Both the story that you told Cliff about fix my raw material problem and then, Dave, what you're talking about is as you talk in the book, focus first on improvement. What are we already working on? What's an improvement project we've got? What's a problem we've got? Because a lot of times, let's say in the teachings of Dr. Deming, it's like, no, get your mind right, read this stuff, read this, figure this out, think about this, go to a seminar, talk to other people before you do anything. I feel like that is oftentimes where people get caught is they get caught up in, I need a year to think about this. And can you explain a little bit more about why once we've done our self assessment and we're ready to go, that you focus on improvement rather than the thinking process?   0:39:21.7 Dave Williams: Well, because we want to... Well, one, we know that in order to get results or to get a different result than what we want, we got to change the system that we got. Right. So in order to do that, we've got to do improvement. The other thing is that there's already energy that's being expended here.   0:39:41.4 Andrew Stotz: That's a good point.   0:39:42.7 Dave Williams: The risk that often I find people run into is that they then add other projects that are not strategic into that bucket and take up more energy. I'll tell you an example. I was working with the health system here in the States and we crowdsource just the things that they were calling improvement projects. The health system had 25 active teams that were just the ones that were called out as improvement projects. When we looked at those 25 teams, the vast majority of them were not actually... They had been meeting for months and doing things for quite some time, but they actually weren't doing any changes and, or they've been testing changes for quite some time. So, now just this exercise alone by only asking, what improvement projects do you have? You realize you've got 25 teams that have been resourced or are spending energy or going to meetings or focused on something. They may not be the strategic thing that matters, but that's irrelevant right now. We just know that we already have invested some interest here. The second thing is these folks have been on this journey for quite some time and are not making progress.   0:41:01.7 Dave Williams: So that tells me something about maybe the way that they framed it. Did they charter it well? Did they have the right people in the room or the right team? Did they have the right tools and methods to be able to break down the problem and then figure out what to test and learn? So there may be some difficulty...   0:41:19.4 Andrew Stotz: Or did they even just dissipate their efforts across 25 projects too? Right in their resources, yeah.   0:41:26.1 Dave Williams: Yeah. Or there are overlaps? So there's a number of different factors. There's actually a paper that was published by a health system in the United Kingdom, and it was really interesting. They spent a lot of attention on generating will through training and getting people in the classroom and teaching them about improvement methods. And they fired up all this energy. They had a massive explosion of the number of projects that were started or where somebody went into their software. They had a software platform. Anybody could go and start a project. Well, something like 50% of those projects never actually got to PDSA testing where they changed anything. And then there were a slew of them that were stuck in PDSA testing but never saw any movement in their process measures or their outcome measures. And only a small number actually progressed in achieving their aim. And I asked the Chief Quality Officer about this, and and he admittedly said that it was very exciting that we we're generating will and getting things going, but that alone was only getting them to maybe some early design and some thinking, but they weren't getting them to results.                                                                         0:42:34.8 Dave Williams: And I said, well, what about the ones that were getting results? And he said, well, those are actually ones where we've got an improvement advisor who's got some skills and ability and improvement. There are things that are resourced, there are things that were prioritized. And man, when we did all those things, they moved from planning and organizing and thinking to testing changes and moving in a direction of goodness and getting at least results in their process measures, if not their outcome measures. And so in my mind, I was like, I appreciate you're trying to build this sort of culture, but it felt like a lot of burnt energy at the front end with all these teams getting into training and firing up their software and more energy might have been strategic in copying what was getting to results. And I think that's part of what we're trying to get to, is helping people learn. You've got if you don't have a method to figure out strategic projects, let's look at the ones you got. How are they going? Where are people at? And how effective is the capability that you have within your system right now? And the leaders want to be part of that, and they can learn within that to go, oh, wow, this is our current state.   0:43:47.2 Dave Williams: And so maybe we're going to agree to continue on with these projects. Maybe we're going to sunset some of them, but we're going to learn together about how do we get better at getting better, and how do we learn how to move projects forward and not to have them take two years. Let's try to get them down to four or six months, whether that's through scope or execution. But let's get better at getting better. And then as we're building... Developing the early activities of QOS, we'll eventually get to a point where we'll also be able to identify more strategic projects that are going to move us towards our aim or towards our purpose better. And this will help us as we're trying to build the capability to get there.   0:44:32.7 Cliff Norman: You know, Andrew, early on, when Dave went down this path, he said that we got to make sure that somebody's working on improvement. They're actually making changes. And Jane and I were working with a group, and the CEO said they've been meeting a long time. Could you down there and see what they're doing? Because nothing's happening. And we started looking through their agendas and they had everything well documented, and it was all about getting ready to get ready. And then they'd assign the dessert. Who's going to bring the dessert to the next meeting. And Jane looked at him and says this reminds me of something, Cliff. I said, what's that? Can I share my screen?   0:45:10.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Yep, go ahead.   0:45:13.7 Cliff Norman: I may send this to. You may know about it, but this is Dr. Deming's Diary of a Cat. And everyday...   0:45:20.6 Andrew Stotz: It hasn't come up yet. Hold on one second. Hopefully you've got permission now.   0:45:28.6 Cliff Norman: Let me go back and check here.   0:45:33.9 Andrew Stotz: Okay. It looks like it's coming up. One second.   0:45:38.4 Cliff Norman: It said every day is today. There's no theory days of the week. But today I got up some food in a bowl, it was great. Slept some too. Play with yarn, got some food in a bowl, had a good nap, slept, food, yarn, fun. Play with a shoelace. There's a big change right there. Went from yarn to a shoelace. Some people call that a job shop. And ate, slept, had a good day, slept, ate some food, yarn, so forth. So, and the team meeting looked just like that. But there's really no changes going on relative to improvement. So Dr. Deming would often share this into four days seminar to make sure that we weren't involved in the Diary of the Cat, but we were actually doing something useful in terms of making changes in the organization.   0:46:24.4 Andrew Stotz: That's a great one. And it helps us to understand that we could be busy all day long and not improve anything.   0:46:31.8 Cliff Norman: You know, or actually confuse that with improvement. In fact, we have an operational API that my team, we were embarrassed in our first, wait a second, our first improvement guide we wrote. And Dr. Adamir Pente, who's a professor at the university in Brazil, he sent us a note and he said, I know you guys and he said you're real big on operational definitions, but you've written this book on improvement and nowhere have you, you've defined what you mean by improvement. And then he put together a three part definition that there's a design and redesign system, there's system measures and the change is sustainable and lasting and so we put that definition in the second edition. But I was confronted at a university, I won't mention which one it was, but they had 30 Keystone projects for a advanced degree program for nursing and they were convinced they were doing improvement. And when I had them apply that definition, they came up out of the thirty. They only could find two projects out of the 30 where they were actually designing and redesigning the system, which, that's the first thing Dave said are we designing and redesigning and making real changes? And people think just showing up and going through motions and all the rest of it is improvement. No, it means...   0:48:07.8 Dave Williams: Looks like we've lost...   0:48:11.9 Andrew Stotz: We lost you at the last, the last statement you just made. People are going through all this stuff and thinking that they're improving, but they're...   0:48:22.8 Cliff Norman: Yeah, it's showing up and going through motions and you know, having the meetings and making sure we assign who's bringing dessert. But we're not really designing and changing the system. We're not getting measurable changes of improvement. In other words, we haven't tracked the data over time and we can't say that the changes that we've made are going to in fact be sustainable because we haven't known what we've done to the system to deserve a sustainable change.   0:48:51.4 Andrew Stotz: By the way, what a buzzword these days, sustainability, sustainable and all that. And you just think do people really think about how we're building something that's really lasting and sustainable?   0:49:04.8 Cliff Norman: Well, we have a checklist and actually Jane designed it for the first edition and it literally lays out what changes did you make, which processes did you change, what's going to change in the documentation, whose role statements have been changed in the organization because of this change. And once all that's answered on that checklist, which is in the book, then we can... But we're pretty certain that we've created the structure to make it easy for people to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing. But unless that structure's changed, probably not much going to happen.   0:49:40.8 Andrew Stotz: Just for the sake of time, because I think we want to wrap up in just a bit. But there's so many stuff, so much stuff that we've been through. But I know there's even more in this chapter, but how would you start to bring this together for the person who is a leader, himself or herself, and they're listening to this and they're thinking, okay, I'm ready to make a change and I'm prepared to devote the time and energy because I see the outcome and I'm open to help, whether that's through the book and other books, whether that's through a consultant, whatever that is. And I can even do a self assessment to some extent and know where our level is, which is very low. We don't know much about this type of stuff and that type of thing. We talked about the first focus on improvement. How do they pull this all together and start moving on it?   0:50:35.0 Dave Williams: There's three things that follow the self assessment. The first one is this focus on doing improvement work and setting up a portfolio of projects. And we just kind of talked about many of the different methods that go into that. And like I said, sometimes that when you say that out loud, leaders don't initially get excited by it because they think they have it. But actually it's a powerful opportunity for you to learn about what's currently going on in the organization and about where this opportunity is to reduce a lot of the noise and a lot of the friction that's getting in the way from you getting to results. The second thing that often happens in parallel is that the leaders need to build a learning system where they're going to be able to learn together both about these projects and what these projects are telling them about their organization, about their culture, about their people, and about their capacity to get results, but also that they can start to be learning about the science of improvement and profound knowledge and the activities of QOS that are going to be part of what they're going to work on developing over the course of the first year or two.   0:51:50.6 Dave Williams: And so that typically is, that's making that space and energy. It's a blend of book learning and application and practical. Trying and looking at things within the organization. It's a very applied approach, but it's an ongoing piece of their discovery. And I often argue that this is a real opportunity for leadership because they're going to be able to see their organization in a way that they haven't seen it before. And when we talk about profound knowledge, they're going to gain this profound understanding and expertise about what they're charged with and what they own and what they want to change in a way that they haven't been able to have it before. And so it's a hard work, but rewarding work. And then third is that typically where the, where we invite people to start is to focus in on the first activity, which is to develop or establish or develop their purpose. When this work was initially framed, not everybody was as... Not everybody had a mission, vision and value statement or a purpose statement that wasn't as common, but today people do. But the difference here, and you'll see this in the chapter on purpose, is that organizations that are pursuing quality as an organizational strategy are organizations that are systems that are built to constantly be trying to match a need that exists out in the world.   0:53:34.7 Dave Williams: And so often a learning for people is to step back and have to reflect on, well, what is the need in which we are creating these products and services to match? And if we're creating these things to match the need, how do we understand what's important, what are the quality characteristics that matter? And then how do we define what our mission is in that context? And being able to say, here's why we exist and the need that we're trying to serve, and in what way? And how do we set a vision for where we want to get into the future and what are the tenants or the practical values that exist in our organization, that we want to define how we work together in terms of building in that way. And so purpose is a big focus. It's that clarity of the need, the clarity of the quality characteristics that it takes to match that need. Understanding what are the products and services that we have. I know that sounds a little trivial, but you'd be stunned how hard it is, especially in service organizations, for people to actually describe what it is that they do, what are the actual services.   0:54:54.3 Dave Williams: They might have the name of the service or the class or the whatever, but to actually say this is what we deliver, and then really think about how do I use this as our organization's sort of North Star, our aim, so that everything else that follows is going to be about building a system that produces the results that we want and produces the services that match that need. So going forward, that's going to be very, very important in instructing the direction and instructing the way in which we're going to work as a community of professional people together.   0:55:30.8 Andrew Stotz: So after self assessment, we're talking about focusing on improvement. We're talking about building a learning system, and we're talking about revisiting or establishing or developing our purpose?   0:55:43.3 Cliff Norman: Yeah, I'll just add to what you just said there, Andrew. There's three basic things that have to happen when we start working. Number one is create the habit of improvement. Start improvement right away. Second thing, Dave just went through some detail on building a system of improvement. And Dave called that a learning system, which I thought was interesting because that's what Dr. Maccabee called it when he saw the five activities. Said, these are really methods for building a learning organization. And he said, I've never really seen them before, but this is what will come out of this, which is the essence of what you want. You want people continually learning, as Dr. Deming said, so they can continually improve. But the third thing that has to happen is we have to develop internal capability for them to carry this on, because we're not going to be around with them. We've never advertised. We don't advertise for clients, and we only get word of mouth. And we're only in there to do those three things, get them started on the habit of improvement, start building the system improvement so they can take it over.   0:56:43.4 Cliff Norman: And the third thing, start developing internal capability so they can continue it on into the future. So those three things basically take off on day one. And depending on the organization, I think this is critical. Dave, you asked this question the other day, if the context is such they've got things in front of them are so bad and so challenging that they just need to work on improvement. That's where we're going to be focused. But now if they can chew gum and walk at the same time, we're going to start building the system of improvement. And the first people I want on those initial teams, I want people on there who are going to be future improvement advisors. And more importantly, they perceive them as future leaders in the organization. I don't want a cadre of a whole bunch of improvement advisors. I want leaders in the future who actually understand the science of improvement, understand these methods, so when they go to the next department, the next organization, they can carry this on. So those three things start improving, start building a system of improvement. And the third thing, start developing internal capability. Those have got to take off almost simultaneously, depending on the situation, of course.   0:57:49.8 Andrew Stotz: Well, on that note, that's quite a discussion. I'm so happy that we can have this to go in a little bit deeper into the work that you guys have done. Again, the book is Quality As an Organizational Strategy. I got mine on Amazon and it sent it to me. But I wonder if you have any last words that you'd like to share about what we've talked about today in relation to getting started.   0:58:18.3 Cliff Norman: So, Dave, why don't you talk a little bit about. Because I think this is critical. We've just finished Andrew, the book that's going to be for the people who actually have to build this system. So Dave, just say a few things about that if you would, because you.   0:58:32.0 Dave Williams: About the field guide?   0:58:33.8 Cliff Norman: Yeah.   0:58:35.5 Dave Williams: Yeah. Well, so when this body of work was first created, there was the content of which you see in this book. And then there were also a lot of exercises and methods and applications and examples that existed as well. And it was a pretty thick binder. We have created two volumes. One, the book that you have, which is the description of the theory and the method and gives you some of the tools. And we're now in the process of pulling together what we call the QOS Field Guide, which is a guide that is supporting people that are going down this journey. It follows the same structure as the book, with the exception of the, the Getting started chapter that we had at the end is now at the beginning. And it walks through in great detail various ways in which you leaders and practitioners can approach getting started and building the capacity and then working through each of the activities. And it's equal in size, I mean, it's about the same thickness. But what we tried to do is to give people really pragmatic things to do.   1:00:01.1 Dave Williams: So there are exercises where people are simulating an idea or a concept or a particular piece. There are what we call QOS applications, which are where you're actually taking the theory or the method and applying it to your own organization. There are case studies and things that have been built that might allow you to practice. There's wonderful examples of just about everything from all, from people that we have worked with over the years across multiple different fields, from my background in emergency services and healthcare to education to manufacturing to elevator companies, all kinds of great stuff. And so that will be helpful as people are trying to think about pursuing this journey and working through that first phase of developing QOS and moving into using it. And we're in the stages of having it done to be available later this year.   1:01:08.6 Andrew Stotz: Exciting.   1:01:09.2 Cliff Norman: We've tried to make it useful, Andrew, that the people have to stay overnight with the management and actually get something done and build it without being run off. That everything is there for them to make sure that they make it successfully. That's the thing we kept in mind as we kept writing this second volume.   1:01:25.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I mean, I would say my experience with your guys's writing is that it's applicable.   1:01:34.1 Dave Williams: Well, Andrew, one thing I was going to add on you mentioned a lot of different examples. There are a lot of books in which people tell you a theory, but they don't tell you how to do it. Or they tell you about their own experience, but they don't actually convey the theory. The Quality as an Organizational Strategy book is laying out the theory and the methods of this approach built on the foundations of the science of improvement and profound knowledge and the Deming philosophy. The QOS Field Guide adds to that by giving you the methods and the tools and the things. It doesn't mean that that by itself you can't just go through like it's some kind of self guided tour and all of a sudden magic happens. There's a lot of work and learning and things that have to go into going through that process. But between these two volumes, a leadership team has the tools and methods that put them in position to be able to make this journey.   1:02:41.4 Andrew Stotz: Right. Well, let's wrap it up there. On behalf of everyone, I appreciate Dave and Cliff. All that you're doing and you're sharing with us and taking the time to do that. So from everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for joining this and bringing your discussion on these topics. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And you can find this book, Quality as an Organizational Strategy at Amazon and other booksellers. Are there even booksellers these days? I don't even know. They're mainly online these days. So this is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, which is "people are entitled to joy in work."  

It's time for PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) Cycle 2 in John Dues' journey to reduce chronic absenteeism in his schools. His team is using PDSA to quickly test ideas and learn on a small scale. Find out what happened and how PDSA can be a powerful tool for learning. 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, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of a new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is Powerful Learning with the PDSA Cycle, Part 2. John, take it away.   0:00:26.7 John Dues: It's good to be back, Andrew. Yeah, like you said, we, I think for the past three episodes or so, we've been working towards getting a better definition of our problem specific to this chronic absenteeism issue that we're working on this year. I don't know if you remember from last episode, but we have this team working and they've basically said we don't have enough information quite yet to write this precise problem statement. So we decided to gather information running the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. And last time we focused on the first cycle. This episode, we're gonna focus on a subsequent PDSA cycle, sort of along those same lines. For folks that are watching and perhaps just joining for the first time, I'll kind of share my screen and do a little bit of a review so that everybody can see or know what we're talking about, even if they're just listening for the first time. So we've talked about this improvement model. We're working through this four step improvement model. So set the direction or challenge is the first step. Grasp the current condition is the second step. Third step is establish your next target condition and then fourth, experiment to overcome obstacles.   0:01:44.3 John Dues: And we're doing all this with a team, people working in the system. People have the authority to work on the system and someone with the System of Profound Knowledge knowledge. right. And so, you know, we've talked about setting that challenge or direction. And as we're grasping the current condition, we've actually decided to skip to step four and experiment a little bit so we can get a deeper understanding of this problem that we've been working on. And you'll remember probably as well, did the screen change for you so you can see the chart now?   0:02:21.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:02:22.9 John Dues: Yeah. Great. So I thought it'd be helpful to show this again too. So this is our process behavior chart of the chronic absenteeism rates dating back to the 2016/'17 school year. So we have eight years of data in regards to this problem. And you'll remember when we talked about set the direction or the challenge, we wanna basically cut this chronic absenteeism rate we're seeing coming out of the pandemic by a lot. So we're hovering around this 50% chronic absenteeism rate. We wanna cut it to 5%. So that means, you know, 50% or more of our kids, or right around 50% of our kids are missing 10% or more of the school year.   0:03:06.2 John Dues: And this is a trend that we're seeing all over the United States right now. And the other thing that we talked about is when we looked at this process behavior chart, that it's basically like there's a pre-pandemic system of chronic absenteeism, and then there's a post-pandemic system of chronic absenteeism. So, you know, before the pandemic, the rates were too high, but nowhere near to where they are now. So, you know, prior to the pandemic, we were sort of hovering around the, you know, 20 to 30% of kids chronically absent. And then, you know, coming out of the pandemic, it's been more like that, that 50% number that we've, that we've talked about.   0:03:49.4 Andrew Stotz: And so to reiterate for the listeners or the viewers, this is the chronic absentee rate at your school, as opposed to nationwide, which I remember last time you talked about, it's about 30% nationwide, and pre-pandemic, it was about 16%.   0:04:06.5 John Dues: Yeah. Right around there. So, yeah, so I'm talking about the four schools that make up our school system in Columbus, Ohio.   0:04:15.8 Andrew Stotz: Yep.   0:04:16.6 John Dues: And, you know, we have a pretty high percent of our kids are economically disadvantaged. And so the rates in schools that have that demographic tend to be more like ours, in that 40, 50% range. And then, but all schools coming out of the pandemic had much higher rates than what they had pre pandemic. No matter your affluence levels. It's just, just like a lot of things the schools with the most kids living in poverty get hit the hardest when you have these problems, basically. So, yeah, yeah. So what we were, we were studying this problem, and, you know, we have some idea of what's causing our challenges, but we've started running these PDSA cycles to dig into that a little bit more, and I'll, I'll, I'll stop sharing. So that's not distracting. And so we ran this first PDSA cycle we talked about last time, and now we're running, or we've just gotten finished running a second PDSA cycle. So for folks that are new to that, what that means is that we are basically running an experiment to test an idea, an idea about how to improve chronic absenteeism.   0:05:26.6 John Dues: And to do that we plan the intervention, then we do or run the experiment, we study it and then we act on that information. 'Cause that's where the PDSA comes from. So basically the objective specific to PDSA 2 is were or we designed a individualized intervention based on responses we get from interviews with kids using this five whys sort of empathy interview template. Right? And then after we do that, what's happening is that students are actually. So after the five whys is completed with the student, we move right into creating the plan of the PDSA still with that student. So they're part of the process. So that's also sort of a key, I think innovation of this particular round of PDSAs is the student is sitting there as we design the intervention. A student that has some issues with chronic absenteeism. And then basically in this particular plan, we decided we're gonna collect detailed attendance data for two weeks to evaluate the effectiveness of that.   0:06:39.7 Andrew Stotz: When you said this one, are you talking about the PDSA one or two?   0:06:43.5 John Dues: Two. The one. The one you just got done running. The one we're talking about. So the PDSA 2 ran for two weeks. So when I say experiment, I'm not talking about, you know, like a randomized controlled trial that can last a year or two years or five years before you get the results. I'm talking about something you can do in a day, a week, two weeks. My general rule is not to go over a month with these PDSA cycles. It starts to feel like it's too long. I wanna get data back quicker than that on an intervention. And so that's what we did with this PDSA cycle 2. And it was really, the plan was built around this key question. The key question was, will involving students in the design of an individualized intervention to address their chronic absenteeism lead to an increase in their average daily attendance rate during that period of intervention. So we're not taking that for granted just because we're sitting with the kids creating a plan with them. We don't know, we don't know what's gonna happen exactly. And basically step one of that plan was this five wise interviews that I talked about.   0:07:50.2 John Dues: So basically we had four staff members. So each one was assigned a student at their campus that they chose to work with on this initial intervention. And they took a piece of sticky paper and up top they basically wrote, here's our problem, the student's name. So let's say James is not coming to school consistently. And when students miss a lot of school, they're at risk of falling behind academically. And right below that problem statement, then they wrote, why are you not coming to school consistently? 'Cause that's the first why question. So that's sort of the first part of this five whys interview. So it's very simple. You need chart, paper and marker in about 20 minutes to do this. Step two is, then they used the information that they gathered from that five whys interview to design the intervention with the student. And basically what they did was they designed the intervention around the root cause that they got to at the bottom of that five whys sequence. So basically, you know, when they said that, when they asked that first question, you know, why are you not coming to school consistently? The student is then going to say something, right? I miss the bus almost every day.   0:09:10.7 John Dues: And so the next question, the next why question is built on the previous answer from the student. So why do you miss the bus every day? And you kind of keep going. And it doesn't always happen perfectly. Sometimes it takes three questions, sometimes it takes a little more than five. But generally speaking, once you drill down with those five whys, you'll get to sort of a root cause from the interviewee, right? And so then they're basically saying like, you know, based on that root cause we identified, what do you think we can do to improve your daily attendance? And then now they're sort of transitioning from the five whys into the planning of the intervention. And sort of that was step two of the plan. And step three is then actually starting to track the student's daily attendance as they do whatever that plan is across the 10 school days that are in that particular cycle. So that's the plan phase. You know, we had a key question that we designed around, and then the team also makes predictions about what they think is gonna happen during that cycle. That's the plan.   0:10:23.5 John Dues: And then, so then they move into, once the plan's in place, you run the experiment. That's the do, right? And so in this particular do, PDSA cycle two here, that team collected both the quantitative data, so that's the five whys interview, and then the quantitative data, that's the daily attendance data. And so, you know, I mentioned that they had chosen four students to do this work with. And so what you're doing in the do is saying, did you do the plan? Basically. And that shouldn't be assumed because things may happen that interrupt the plan or derail the plan or make you change the plan. The guy that's designing these PDSAs is pretty good project manager. He knows improvement science, he knows the Deming stuff pretty well. So largely this experiment ran as planned. It's also for a pretty short time frame, so there's less time for it to go sort of off the rails and go wrong. But one of the student's attendance, it was so poor during this two week period that they never actually held the empathy interview. So you're noting stuff like that. You plan to interview four kids, you actually only interviewed three kids.   0:11:34.9 John Dues: And here's the reason why, we couldn't even get to the part of interviewing the student, this particular student, because he was not there during that two week period when they were gonna do the interviews. And so then the data comes in, right? The data comes in and now we're ready to study what actually happened during that two week period. So with the first student, interestingly, during the course of the PDSA, that daily attendance rate did go up. Right? And he was actually, he did miss a couple days, so it wasn't perfect, but he brought a note and there was actually a medical diagnosis. There was like a excuse reason for those particular days. Right. The second student was that student I was just referring to. So it was, his attendance was so poor that weren't even able to do the interview. That happens that you know, in real life. Third student's, this was a real success story. She was a part of her, the plan that she designed. She was meeting with one of the staff members at the school she attends that she chose one-on-one at the start of the day and she had significantly increased attendance during this two week period.   0:13:04.0 John Dues: And then the last student had this initial bump early in the PDSA and then had four straight sort of missed days at the end of that two week period also due to an illness, due to the flu. So you know, four kids, one uh two kids, pretty good success. Two kids still had some absences throughout the period. And then one kid sort of really didn't break the cycle. Nothing changed. And in fact the interview didn't even occur. Which means there was also no intervention that occurred with that particular student. Even so, with the student where we couldn't do the interview during that period, part of the plan was to get him a more reliable bus stop and we actually were able to change his bus stop, communicate that to the family and then that still didn't lead to increased attendance. And that's, you know, when you, I think when you work like this too, when you are sort of a policymaker or politician and you make these proclamations, we're gonna decrease chronic absenteeism or to cut it in half. And then you say, okay, well here's four students. Do that in two weeks. Do that over the course, just two weeks, just 10 days. How hard could it be? Right. [laughter] You see, you see just how hard these things are in reality. Right. So can't just make these proclamations.   0:14:32.9 Andrew Stotz: And is that part of what you're trying to do also in this process is get people to, you know, I mean, obviously what you'd love is to be able to come up with solutions from these four students. But really what you also are identifying is the other side of that. Wow, this is even harder than I thought.   0:14:50.2 John Dues: Yeah. And I, you know, with the people that work in schools, like the folks that are on this improvement team, none of this is gonna be a surprise to them.   0:14:57.3 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, they already know that, I guess.   0:14:58.6 John Dues: They already know.   0:15:00.3 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:15:00.4 John Dues: Because they're on the front lines. I mean, they already know knew this is, you know, multi layered, challenging problem to address. But on the flip side, there were some pretty encouraging signs that getting, we call it getting proximate to students, individualizing some of those interventions and then including the student in that attendance monitoring and the intervention that it, you know, like I said, there were some success stories. So that first student I talked about, he went from 52% attendance to during the intervention period, it jumped up to 70%. So, you know, it's a short time frame, but a positive sign. That second student that I said that, you know, we never even got to do the interview with, he actually got quite a bit worse. So he had something like 37% attendance and that dropped 10% during that two week period. And then that third student that I said was a real success story, she went from 75% attendance to 96% attendance. And 96% attendance is good. And then the last student, she was the one that I said, you know, there was an initial bump and then kind of fell off, due to the flu at the end, she basically stayed the same. Like she was at right around 56% attendance and stayed right in that mid-50s range during the intervention.   0:16:19.8 Andrew Stotz: And just for, if a listener or a viewer has come in just on this episode and they're trying to understand where we're at, it's maybe you could talk a little bit about what you're doing in the sense that someone may look at it and say, wait a minute, this is just some anecdotes and how does that help you? And then on the other hand, one of the lessons in the business world that people sometimes say these days is do things that don't scale, which is counterintuitive. But what they're trying to get you to do is focus in, on getting it right with a small number of people before you then, you know, decide to go to the next level. So just maybe just give a brief of where it's at in this whole process.   0:17:04.8 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, I think. I mean, that's the whole point of the PDSA. The counterintuitive thing is that while you want to improve things for all students, you may start by working with a single student or a single classroom, or in our case, you know, four students. So, you know, the good thing is, is that what you could possibly do out of a cycle like this is, and this is only two weeks. But there's significant learning. And so what you would then do with cycle three, perhaps if the team decided this was what they're gonna do, is make some adaptation to this process, and if you were feeling confident that the adaptation was gonna work, then you could possibly. It's pretty early cycle two to start spreading this real wide. But I mean, you could spread this, you know, if you wanted to, to instead of four students, maybe you wanna try 10 students, something like that. Right. And in that way, and that's the basic idea, is to go from one student to one classroom of students to maybe one grade level of students to a whole school, perhaps if some type of idea is working really well. But the thing is, is that the whole mantra is, I lost my train of thought. Start small, learn fast. That's the mantra. Right.   0:18:23.7 Andrew Stotz: And then the other question I would have is, to what extent is this, you know, just subject to the Hawthorne effect in the sense that we knew in the many years ago that when they increased the intensity of the light, the workers did better, and then when they reduced the intensity of the light, the workers did better. So it was just that somebody was paying attention to the workers and the result was they appreciated that and so they did better.   0:18:53.9 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, that's possible. I mean, I would say...   0:18:57.0 Andrew Stotz: Which of course. Which of course may be the solution anyways. Right? You know, like, geez, if a teacher was... If each student was greeted by a teacher who cared about them and said, I'm so happy to see you, and it's great that you made it on time. Let's get started. I mean that could change the life of some people for sure. Including me.   0:19:13.7 John Dues: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, like the girl that went from 75% to 96% attendance during the intervention. I wouldn't say, oh my gosh, we're gonna do this school wide now, but what I would say is, wow, that worked for that two week period.   0:19:25.7 Andrew Stotz: We're learning.   0:19:27.5 John Dues: It was relatively easy to do on a daily basis, so let's do more of that. Right. And also another thing you can think about is when you run PDSA cycles and you, let's say you do have really great success on whatever that thing is and you've spread it throughout your system. But now the priorities have changed. There's some other thing that really needs intensive intervention. One thing you can do is sort of as the 10th step in our improvement process is hold the gains. And so you often can then check back in on that thing in a month or two months and just see what the data says. Did it deteriorate because we're not paying as much attention to it or because we put that thing in place and left it in place? Although we're not as hyper focused on it, is it still sort of continuing on in a way that's at least acceptable to us?   0:20:22.3 Andrew Stotz: I just had an idea. Why don't we put a finish line and a countdown clock and a checkered flag and cheer every student as they get over the line?   [laughter]   0:20:35.0 John Dues: Yeah, that would be great. That would be great. The problem is, is the cheering isn't the thing that's preventing them from coming to school.   0:20:45.1 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:20:46.1 John Dues: Maybe like the cherry on top, but you know.   0:20:49.4 Andrew Stotz: Exactly.   0:20:51.6 John Dues: So, so it's tough. Yeah.   0:20:52.2 Andrew Stotz: Great, great example of where superficial things that outsiders see may not really connect with the real trouble that they're struggling with. Yep.   0:21:01.5 John Dues: And remember, the student's not the only part of the process. The people, the staff that were doing these interventions, they reported that this was like a really powerful experience for them. Most of them haven't been through a PDSA cycle before.   0:21:18.6 Andrew Stotz: Right.   0:21:18.6 John Dues: So this.   0:21:20.3 Andrew Stotz: Maybe I was, slogans and exhortations is what I was just talking about.   0:21:24.8 John Dues: Right, right, right. Yeah. But they felt pretty confident that doing more of that thing was a good idea coming out of cycle one and then this second cycle. Now, with that being said, one of the things that we've also discovered is that there's some required intervening that has to happen as kids meet certain thresholds that are required by the state of Ohio. And so I think I mentioned this before, that one of the things that we're doing as a part of the project was mapping out the intervention process in place at each campus. So while the benchmarks are the same for when you need to do that, the how and the who and the when, that there's variation in that. So right now we're taking like each of the campuses mapped out their intervention process for attendance, and we're taking a look at that. And so what we're actually gonna do in the next cycle is work to put together a more standardized approach to these intervention teams. So, and that... And you get that from the team, you know, you're sort of talking about, you know, as we get to the Act.   0:22:38.4 John Dues: I think I've talked about this before. There's sort of the three A's. You can adopt this into your system, write it down in a manual or whatever, you can adapt it, change it a little bit, or if it's really not going well, then you abandon it. So in this case, there's an adaptation where we're gonna sort of shift gears and work on this process mapping and get that put in place 'cause the team feels like that's the highest lever, next thing to do, basically.   0:23:06.5 Andrew Stotz: And is that. Have you already mapped out PDSA 3 now? And you're in that process? Is that. And that's what we're gonna talk about next one, or where are you at with that?   0:23:15.5 John Dues: Yeah, so I think looking at the process maps would be interesting because you can sort of assume that things happen relatively similarly, you know, especially in a small school system like ours. But you're gonna see that there's... And it's not right or wrong necessarily, but there may be a sort of like, again, a better way to do things because there are many... There's sometimes many people involved, many processes, many forms. And so, yeah, we're gonna look and see, basically, is one more efficient than the other, is one more effective than the other, that type of thing.   0:23:51.4 Andrew Stotz: Okay.   0:23:52.3 John Dues: Yeah. So a lot of learning, you know, I mean, I think, and you know, again, this takes time. But, and we're still sort of in that "define the problem" step. But again, the fact that we're studying the problem, the fact that we're talking to kids as a part of it, we're actually learning from data coming from what's happening on the ground. The ultimate solution or set of solutions we come up with are gonna be much more robust, you know, and they're gonna be much more sort of durable into the future, anti-fragile you know, into the future because of this work versus, you know, the typical fly by night. Let's have a pizza party on Friday to encourage kids to come to school, that just... There may be an initial bump, but it's just, this has no durability into the future. Yeah.   0:24:44.8 Andrew Stotz: Great, great. Well, I like that. And I got excited 'cause I thought, oh, maybe we can come up with some incentive or something. But what I see is that the challenge is how do you make it durable? So I like that word. And this was a good discussion on that.   0:25:01.8 John Dues: Yeah. Well, I was just gonna say the other point I would make is, you know, sometimes you can plan, plan, plan, but that, you know, at any point of an improvement process, you can use a PDSA cycle, start running an experiment and start gathering information right away. Just do something, you know, thoughtful, but do something. Don't plan in a room when you can go out and get actual, run actual experiments and get back real data.   0:25:27.5 Andrew Stotz: All right, and one other question I had that just came to my mind is what is the value of doing this in such a structured way as the PDSA versus Oh, come on, John, we're testing things all the time, you know, and let's say that to some extent they are, right? We all are testing every day. Why is it important that it's done in a structured way, in a documented way?   0:25:50.8 John Dues: Well, I mean, one, you have a historical record. Two, you know, we had four. So there's one PDSA cycle, but actually there's four different mini experiments happening, one at each campus. And if you didn't write it down like the guy does that's designing these, every one of the experiments would have been different. And he really thinks through step by step. Okay, put this number here. How are we gonna define that? There's a validated list of definitions of that type of attendance issue that day. Because if you don't have all that stuff, then there's no way to analyze it after the fact, or at least it's a lot less, a lot less efficient.   0:26:28.3 Andrew Stotz: And the learning could be lost too.   0:26:30.1 John Dues: Learning could be lost. And you know, I would venture to guess that, you know, if you run a sort of an experiment haphazardly, especially if there's multiple locations, the people sort of, their definition of the thing that's being measured is gonna vary too.   0:26:45.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:26:45.5 John Dues: Almost every time. Almost every time, even subtly.   0:26:50.9 Andrew Stotz: All right, well, that was a great discussion. And on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute. I wanna thank you again for this discussion and for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book, Win-Win, W. Edwards Deming, The System of Profound Knowledge and The Science of Improving Schools on Amazon. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. People are entitled to joy in work.  

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Can you use Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) during the information-gathering phase of an improvement project? Yes! Join John Dues and host Andrew Stotz as they discuss how John's team used PDSA to learn more about chronic absenteeism, their surprising findings, and what they'll do next. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.8 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, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is powerful learning with the PDSA cycle. John, take it away.   0:00:25.5 John Dues: Yeah, Andrew. It's good to be back. For the past two episodes or so, we've been working towards defining the problem of our chronic absenteeism issue, of course, we have a problem with chronic absenteeism, but we're trying to narrow that down and get a more specific problem statement. Last time we talked about how our improvement team, basically, had come to the conclusion after a few weeks of study that we didn't have enough information to write that specific, precise problem statement. So what we decided to do, and we started looking at this last time, was we started to gather additional information through a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. So that's what we'll focus on today, is this first PDSA cycle, and I think it's good to know that you can use PDSAs to run an experiment to test a new idea, but you can also run a PDSA to gather more information. Those are both very worthwhile uses of the PDSA cycle. So I go to share my screen just so I have that model up so that people who can see it, for those that are viewing. Can you see that now?   0:01:33.8 Andrew Stotz: Coming up. Okay, we can see it.   0:01:36.6 John Dues: All right, great. So you remember, we've been working through this four-step process for those who are hopping in for the first time or as a review for those that have been following along. So we have these four steps: set the challenge or direction, grasp the current condition, establish your next target condition, and then an experiment to overcome obstacles. And remember, we've been working through this team, that's a combination of people working in the system, people who have the authority to actually change the system, and then the System of Profound Knowledge coach. So I think that's a pretty powerful combination of people, and that's our team here working on this chronic absenteeism problem. You also remember that we have this long-range goal that this challenge that is to improve our chronic absenteeism from right around 50% to down closer to 5%, and I don't know if you remember this, but a number of episodes ago, I showed you the data we had over time, and we just had three years of data. Since that time I showed you that first run chart, I've actually gone back and added chronic absenteeism rates for our schools going all the way back to the 2016 - '17 year, and I think it's worth it to just take another quick look at those rates over time in a process behavior chart.   0:03:00.2 Andrew Stotz: Exciting.   0:03:01.5 John Dues: So, yeah. This is our chart. So we add more days so why not display it in this way. So what this chart is, is again a process behavior chart, we have school years going back to the 2016-'17 school year, and then through last school year. And we have the blue dots displaying the chronic absenteeism rate for each of those school years across our school system, and then the green is... The green line is that central line, it's the average of all years, the red lines are those natural process limits that sort of tell us where we can expect our data to fall given that this is a predictable system. So you can see right off the bat, something that's pretty obvious is that the first four years of data are below that central line, and then the last four years of data are above that central line. And of course, it's not too hard to sort of recognize that the pandemic happened towards the end of the 2019-'20 school year, and then sort of... We were all remote heading into that 2021 school year, and then for a number of years after we were in remote or hybrid, and so you can see very clearly that while there was chronic absenteeism in our system prior to the pandemic, after the pandemic, it exploded and it has not subsided.   0:04:28.7 John Dues: So in a typical year prior to the pandemic, we were somewhere around that 25, about a quarter of the kids give or take, depending on the year, of the kids were chronically absent, and then after the pandemic, we can see it sort of... Or at the begining of the pandemic, explodes up and then has settled around this, right about 50% average.   0:04:51.1 Andrew Stotz: And the fact that it's remained at this much higher level of, let's say 50-55% tells you that there's like... It has had somewhat of a permanent impact, whereas some people may think that the COVID situation caused a spike in chronic absenteeism up to 70% or whatever that number was, and then it came back to normal. But it's far away from normal.   0:05:26.4 John Dues: Yeah, and I haven't done a deep analysis. But in addition to the chronic absenteeism, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is like the gold standard, the report card for the nation, a nationally known test given every couple of years, that data shows that the 4th and 8th graders that take that test across the country in ELA and math, the scores are down coming out of the pandemic as well and have not rebounded. So I think that data is important. I'm not necessarily saying one way or the other, what we should have done, but what I am saying is like when we make decisions like shutting down schools, it's not just a decision that has an impact in the moment, there are ramifications on an ongoing basis. And we should sort of take that calculus into consideration when we're deciding what to do in a situation like that.   0:06:20.0 Andrew Stotz: And this also shows that you're taking on a pretty serious challenge because...   0:06:23.8 John Dues: Very serious. Yeah.   0:06:25.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, it's serious for the students, but it's also serious in the sense that it's been lingering at this very high level of chronic absenteeism, so, okay.   0:06:37.0 John Dues: Yeah.   0:06:37.5 Andrew Stotz: Shocking.   0:06:38.1 John Dues: Yeah, it is pretty shocking.   0:06:38.7 Andrew Stotz: That's not happening in Asia.   0:06:40.6 John Dues: No, and it's... I think a number of places in the United States, the learning chronic absenteeism has bounced back, but in the places where you expect where there's, especially high concentrations of poverty and things like that. It's sort of remained a serious issue even depending how you mark the end of the pandemic, two or three years after the primary part of the pandemic anyway. The height of the pandemic, if you will. So, ongoing challenges for sure. So what I said was that the team was going to run this initial PDSA cycle to gather more information, of course, there were some initial thoughts on why kids were missing so much school. We've talked about these transportation, different expectations that have been set for when to stay home, family and instability, those types of things. But again, we want to further test those assumptions early on in the project. So the key question that we were looking at is, for this first PDSA cycle, at least was will the combination of a what we call an empathy interview, which is just like where we sit down with a student or the family and try to better understand what's going on, and then daily attendance tracking was the other part of this, will that lead to a modest increase in the students average daily attendance rate during the period of the intervention.   0:08:11.9 John Dues: So even though we weren't necessarily testing a change idea, there was this sort of like... We framed it as a modest intervention in terms of sitting down with the kids and then doing this daily tracking and showing them the data. And a key part of this plan phase is we had all of our team members predict what they thought would happen with the four students that we chose to have those interviews with and track the daily attendance of during Cycle 1. So we had everybody really think through, "Okay, what do we think will happen when we put this plan in place?" And that's going to be really important because when we actually run the test, we want to compare the predictions to what actually happens, and that's where a lot of the learning happens from a PDSA cycle.   0:09:02.9 Andrew Stotz: And just for the listeners or viewers out there, why is it important to do that? Some people would say just do it and find out what the result is.   0:09:12.3 John Dues: Well, if you don't take a stance basically before the intervention happens or before the plan is put in place, then there's no learning that can really happen because whatever happens happens. But you didn't sort of say, "Here's what I think's going happen." And a lot of times, we quantify that prediction, and then what you can see is the difference between those two things is not only the learning, but it's also an indication of how well you understand your system. So what I mean is, if we put an intervention in place and I say, "Okay, I think this is going to have a 15% increased impact on whatever it is, a test score or attendance in this case," and then it has no impact, then I don't have an understanding really of what's going to work to fix whatever I'm trying to fix. But if the prediction bears out and it's pretty close to what actually happens, then that means, oh, I have a pretty good grasp on what's going on in my system. Yeah, kind of makes you put a stake in the ground, and it makes you mentally when you're doing it, it makes you think.   0:10:19.0 John Dues: Look further ahead and say, "Okay, if I do this, do I actually think this is going to be effective?" And you can also see the team's thinking. Some people might think this is going to be very effective, and some people may think it's not. Some people might think it'll work with some students, but not other students, and it gives you that picture black and white before you actually run the test.   0:10:37.8 Andrew Stotz: And in academic studies, it's really important to identify your end point that you're testing for. Otherwise, you run the risk of switching your end point as you get through your research because you're grounded initially.   0:10:53.2 John Dues: Right, exactly. Right, yep, absolutely. So in this plan, what we did was, this... We had parent conferences coming up, so we just said, that's a natural time to sit down with these four students that we chose at parent conferences. So at the end of November, we did that, we reviewed the data, we sat with the family to discuss some of the causes of the attendance challenges. We explained the plan to track attendance for 15 days coming back from Thanksgiving break. And then part of the plan was collecting that quantitative data, like the actual attendance rates each day for each kid, but then it was qualitative too, because we were asking the family on the front end, what was the sort of overall cause of the problem. And then we were asking the actual student every day like, "Oh, on this particular day, why were you absent, or why were you late, why did you miss school?" And we were tracking that across 15 days, so it's a relatively short time period, 'cause we don't want to go off on some grand experiment and then find out three months from now that our intervention wasn't effective.   0:12:02.5 John Dues: So that was the plan. And then the next step in the PDSA cycle is the do and that's just like it sounds. So we ran the experiment for 15 days and then started gathering that data. So what we found was that in two of the cases, transportation challenges were in fact the primary issue, in the third case, it was sort of transportation, but that was exacerbated by a family that was homeless during this period, and then in the fourth cause, or in the fourth case, there was actually some sort of anxiety issues with coming to school. So you can see three very different causes just across four students. So again, if you don't have that picture, then it's very hard to sort of design the right type of interventions 'cause you don't really know what's going on. You have assumptions, right? So I don't think it's rocket science, but the team learn that there are so many layers to this attendance challenge, and even for a single student, there's often multiple factors rather than some single explanatory variable. And so you have to sort of uncover that, and I think the key thing was that holding these empathy interviews, just these four interviews allowed us to challenge some of our initial assumptions. Like maybe a family doesn't value attendance, that didn't seem to be the case, at least with any of these four students who are facing some serious challenges on the home front.   0:13:48.6 John Dues: But it wasn't like families didn't value school or having their kids attending school, there're just major obstacles. And so digging deeper allowed us to explore these various causes with the families. Another thing that was interesting is that as we talked with the team about... As the data came in and what they were doing, we also learned that we need a better, more systematic process for intervening with chronically absent students, that's everything from reviewing the data, identifying those chronically absent students early on in the school year, for those that we're required to do something like file truancy for those processes and then monitoring attendance, there's various requirements public schools have on that front. Every school is... They have a system in place, and they have a team in place, and they have a process in place for these different things, but they're all doing it differently, and so there's not a standardized process across our system. And another thing is, some parents didn't even realize that they may have a general idea that the attendance isn't great, but don't... Most parents don't actually realize what is the actual attendance rate of their child, how far off is it from what's considered exceptional or at least okay attendance.   0:15:17.6 John Dues: Almost nobody has that. Those numbers at the ready. Another thing that has happened as we studied the data was that there was a really wide variation in terms of the difference in student daily attendance between the period of the intervention and end of the school year up to that point. So there's basically a lot of learning going on with just a very simple four student experiment. So even though the predictions weren't perfect, and one thing with the predictions is, this is Cycle 1, so what should happen over time as we gain knowledge about our system, is that the predictions get closer and closer to what actually happens because we're learning with every PDSA cycle that we're running basically. So the last part is, then you act, so we've done the plan, we've done the do, the study, and the act, and the way I frame this is that you have three As that you can choose from in the Act segment. You can adopt that change that you've tested, you're going to adapt that into the next cycle, or you can say this is not working at all and you can abandon it and just do something else.   0:16:34.2 John Dues: Yeah, those are the three options. So what we've actually decided to do, what happens in a lot of early tests, is we're going to adapt Cycle 1 into Cycle 2, and in fact, Cycle 2 has actually already started. But the aim of Cycle 2 now is we're going to increase the extent to which we're involving students and families in the data collection process, and we're going to hold what we call like a... We call this a 5 Whys Empathy interview with each student that we've identified, and then use that to create a plan for a PDSA that's specific to that one student, basically. So it's going to be very hyper-focused and so we're going to collect this data for two weeks, we recognize that doing this intensive of a process with the entire school or the entire group of students that are chronic absent probably isn't possible, but what we're doing is learning so much from this, that seemed like we're going to take another step to learn more and work with the individual student to set up the next round of interventions.   0:17:49.4 Andrew Stotz: And what are you guys expecting for an outcome? You know, talking about prediction? I don't know. Should we think about where are you going to be in one year or two years, three years?   0:18:00.7 John Dues: Oh no. It's very closely tied with the PDSA. So if it's a two-week PDSA, then we're actually saying, what is that the average daily attendance going to be for that two-week period?   0:18:11.7 Andrew Stotz: Yep. Yep.   0:18:14.3 John Dues: I mean. It's very tightly closed. Yeah.   0:18:14.8 Andrew Stotz: What I'm saying though, let's just take the attendance levels that we've seen in the chart, let's just talk about annual and let's say, "Okay, one year from now, two years from now."   0:18:23.7 John Dues: Oh yeah. That's right. Oh I see.   0:18:26.7 Andrew Stotz: Are you... Is it right to make a prediction about where you think you would be or is that not the right way to do it?   0:18:32.0 John Dues: I think it's too early in the process to make... I see what you're saying now you're talking about the actual... That overall system measurement. Yeah, I think it's too early to make a prediction on that, if you were holding a gun to my head and making me put money down, my prediction would be right in line with what it is this year, basically. I would think it... Because it's a stable system. Those last four years, all bounce around 50-55%, like you said. So my bet would be on 50-55%. Because...   0:19:11.2 Andrew Stotz: And what would... How would things change for you or the school? Let's just imagine hypothetically... I'm going to push back a little bit here and just get some thinking, but from a hypothetical perspective, let's say a new school opened up and their number one focus was chronic absenteeism, and they decided that the most important thing for them is to solve that problem. And they had been doing it for a while in other locations, and now they've come in, now you're competing with them. They're an option for some people, and they're just the place for others, and let's just say that they have optimized for chronic absenteeism and it's down to 10% at their school. Does that change how you think about what you're doing? Again, it's hypothetical, but I'm just curious. How does that...   0:20:01.3 John Dues: No. Not me, because this is what our system produces right now, so... Yeah, I think I would say I don't have enough information to make a prediction about what the ultimate outcome measure will be.   0:20:19.4 Andrew Stotz: And I guess you could say this is what our system produces in this area based upon what we see as important, right? Like this is...   0:20:32.4 John Dues: Yeah. That's fair.   0:20:33.2 Andrew Stotz: And there may be another area that you think is very important in that those numbers in that area may be very, very different from that, but another... Go ahead.   0:20:43.7 John Dues: Yeah, well, I was going to say, so in this attendance team, there's... The empathy interview is going on with these four students, and then in the Act phase, we also said we're launching an effort to make the intervention process more consistent across all of our schools. And we're starting by understanding the process that's in place right now, but this team is not the only team pulling levers that ultimately could impact attendance. I think they're pulling important levers, but there are other improvement teams across the school system, for example, I think I mentioned this maybe a few episodes ago, transportation. Transportation did come up like we thought it would in three of the four interviews. So, and we have mentioned how poor the bussing has been in Columbus for the last several school years, but especially last year and this year. And so we're working to see can we do something significantly different next year on the transportation front.   0:22:00.1 John Dues: And I think if we can pull that lever, that also... But that would be a change to the system, like a very significant change. Now, if that went through, I would be much more confident about making a prediction about improvement on the attendance front next year, so.   0:22:17.9 Andrew Stotz: If I look...   0:22:19.2 John Dues: It's not going to solve our problems though. Yep.   0:22:21.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. If I look at my roasting business for coffee, if I replace my pretty much manual roasting machine with a fully automated high-tech one, it's going to have a massive improvement in variability. Invariability is going to reduce way beyond what our current system can produce and it will happen in a day, right? When that happens, it'll happen in a day.   0:22:47.4 John Dues: Yeah.   0:22:52.9 Andrew Stotz: And being late for class is a big bag-a-boo of teachers here in Thailand, particularly at universities where I go to, and it's a problem and nobody likes it and students come in late and all that. But I solved that problem with just the twist of my finger, one twist of my fingers, and I solved it. What was that twist? I locked the door. And then as the students were outside waiting to come inside, I would eventually go out and I'd say, "Look, it's important to me that you're on time. I'm going to lock this door. If you can't make it... You got to figure out how to make it." I know you got two hours of traffic and you're coming in from abroad, or you're coming in from outside of the city, I know that your parents don't have the money to pay for a car for you and you got to take the subway or you've got... I know. Everybody's got their circumstances, but you're making an effort to get here, I want you to get here on time.   0:23:52.4 Andrew Stotz: The next class that I have, everybody's on time. So one of the questions I have, and this is, again, push back is, some people may look at this and go, "Oh. Come on. All this work. Why don't we just massively prioritize and focus." Let's just say that... Let's just say, I don't know what the answer is, but let's just say that the principle of the school, all the teachers and all the students gather out in the front area at the time that you're supposed to be at school, and there's a band playing. Everybody's cheering. We're getting ready. Whatever that thing is. I remember a boss I had that used to have a stand-up meeting every single morning, and you didn't miss it. And so for some people who are listening, they may think, "Oh, come on, John, you're going through all this stuff and it's not going to improve. Why aren't you just taking more aggressive action right now."   0:24:48.9 John Dues: Well, I didn't say I was going to improve it, I just said I wasn't going to make a prediction.   0:24:51.9 Andrew Stotz: Yes. Yes. Sorry. I didn't mean...   0:24:53.8 John Dues: So yeah. What would I say? I think when you have... So the person that is in charge of this project, for example, I don't know that anybody's ever gotten better results while a principal of a school in Ohio with the challenges that he faced. So this is not people that aren't driven to get extraordinary results. This is a multi-faceted problem that is incredibly tough to improve, and when I have the view point of sitting down with the students and hearing what is... Keep the obstacles are... It is just a very hard thing, and I'd say one of the reasons we're pulling that transportation lever early, or at least attempting to is because that's such a big part. Again, that's not going to solve everything. But like I said, if we were able to pull that lever and it's a big if because we get no funding for transportation. All the funding flows through the school district, so that's a massive obstacle. Millions of dollars that we aren't allocated to do this service, someone else is. So right now we don't have control over it, and so those are the types of obstacles, we can't just buy buses, for example. Because...   0:26:36.1 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. And it's like you got 50 problems that you're trying to...   0:26:41.7 John Dues: 50 problems.   0:26:41.7 Andrew Stotz: And 50 more constraints that you're operating within.   0:26:45.9 John Dues: Yeah. And so we were attacking it from multiple angles, so we were attacking it on the attendance front with kids, at the State House with funding, with trying to see if we can set up our own transportation system even without that funding. So there's many, many levers being attempted, but they are not quick and easy, simple, so.   0:27:12.8 Andrew Stotz: And for a listener who's listening to this, who may not be the CEO of a company, let's say who's got resources he can allocate or she can allocate, they also may be in a situation like, "This is all I can impact. I can impact this area, but I have to be realistic about what resources I have."   0:27:33.6 John Dues: Yeah, and I think one of the things we're doing too, we don't have rose colored glasses on, we're saying, even if we did fix this transportation system, and that's a big if again. That doesn't mean that the chronic absenteeism problem is going to be solved. Maybe it's significantly better, maybe it goes down to 30%, 35%, if we had a good transportation system, but that still means... And even before transportation was such an issue, even before the pandemic, these rates were still... The quarter of the kids who are so chronically absent, that's way too high, that's way too high. So we recognize that, but these are very, very thorny problems to try to improve.   0:28:15.0 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Well, and also you're trying to make lasting change too, so.   0:28:18.6 John Dues: Lasting change. Yeah.   0:28:19.6 Andrew Stotz: Yep.   0:28:19.7 John Dues: Yep. Yeah.   0:28:22.1 Andrew Stotz: Okay. Great. So I'm going to wrap it up there. And thanks...   0:28:23.3 John Dues: Yeah. Absolutely.   0:28:24.6 Andrew Stotz: And thank you for, on behalf of the Deming Institute, and I want to encourage all the listeners out there to follow what John's doing and what he's talking about, and of course, go to Deming.org to continue your journey. You can get his book, Win-Win, W. Edwards Deming, The System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. And this is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, people are entitled to joy in work.

Welcome to the Sustainable Clinical Medicine Podcast! In Episode 108, host Dr. Sarah Smith is joined by Dr. Sarah Dalton, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist from Sydney, Australia. Together, they explore the challenges and innovations in creating sustainable career paths for clinicians within complex healthcare systems. Dr. Dalton shares her unique journey through medicine, likening herself to a 'platypus' with diverse interests that have led her to integrate pediatrics, acute care, and quality improvement. Listeners will gain insights into her work in clinical leadership, her focus on patient experience and quality improvement in emergency settings, and her role in implementing electronic medical records across New South Wales. Dr. Dalton also discusses balancing clinical and nonclinical roles, the significance of self-care, and the value of coaching for medical professionals. Join us as we delve into practical approaches and systemic solutions aimed at enhancing the sustainability of medical careers. Here are 3 key takeaways from this episode: Quality Improvement in Healthcare: Dalton emphasized the importance of quality improvement as a structured approach to solving healthcare system issues. By leveraging PDSA cycles, clinicians can effectively enhance patient experiences and streamline processes. System-Level Change and Leadership: Leading large-scale healthcare initiatives, such as implementing electronic medical records across hospitals, requires authentic engagement and a clear vision of benefits for clinicians and patients alike. Balancing Work and Wellness: Dalton shared her strategy for maintaining a sustainable work-life balance, highlighting the importance of setting boundaries and incorporating regular breaks to recharge. Dr. Sarah Dalton Bio: Dr Sarah Dalton has a clinical background as a Paediatric Emergency Physician, and a long history of medical leadership roles including previous President of the Paediatric and Child Health Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. Sarah has worked in different clinical and managerial roles across NSW over the last 25 years, including several executive leadership roles within NSW Health. Sarah has completed a Fulbright Scholarship in Clinical Leadership and is an experienced executive coach and facilitator who primarily works with healthcare leaders. -------------- Would you like to view a transcript of this episode? Click here **** Charting Champions is a premiere, lifetime access Physician only program that is helping Physicians get home with today's work done. All the proven tools, support and community you need to create time for your life outside of medicine. Learn more at https://www.chartingcoach.ca **** Enjoying this podcast? Please share it with someone who would benefit. Also, don't forget to hit “follow” so you get all the new episodes as soon as they are released. **** Come hang out with me on Facebook or Instagram. Follow me @chartingcoach to get more practical tools to help you create sustainable clinical medicine in your life. **** Questions? Comments? Want to share how this podcast has helped you? Shoot me an email at admin@reachcareercoaching.ca. I would love to hear from you.

Join John Dues and Andrew Stotz as they go one step deeper into finding the precise problem you want to improve. Sometimes taking big actions means starting small. TRANSCRIPT Diving Deeper into Defining the Problem: Path for Improvement (Part 6)   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, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. And the topic for today is more on defining the problem. John, take it away.   0:00:23.5 John Dues: It's good to be back, Andrew. Yeah, so it's been a minute, but two episodes ago we just kind of refreshed. We discussed how helpful it is to make sure we see the system in which we work whenever we're starting an improvement project. And then in this last episode, we took the sort of next step and we started working towards defining a specific problem. And like you said, we're going to dive deeper into that topic today. For those that have been following along, you'll remember that we've been walking through this four step improvement model. Step one, set the challenge or direction. Two is grasp the current condition. Three is establish your target condition, and four, experiment to overcome obstacles. And then again, we've said repeatedly, we're doing all of these steps with this team that has three parts.   0:01:18.1 John Dues: The people working in the system, again, for us, that's teachers and students a lot of the time, and then those that have the authority to work on the system, that might be a principal, that might be a teacher depending on the project, maybe it's the superintendent, if it's the whole system. And then this System of Profound Knowledge coach is that third part that's often missing, at least in school improvement. So we have this nice model and this nice graphic. And then what we've also been sort of layering on top of that is this improvement process.   0:01:48.9 John Dues: So in each of these steps in the model, we have a number of steps that we're taking to be able to sort of achieve that. One of the things though, that sort of like a key organizing question in step one in the model is we asked where do we want to be in the long run, right? And so we're thinking through this longer range goal, typically in the timeframe of something like six months to three years. And if we achieve this, it's really going to differentiate us from other schools in our case or maybe businesses or hospitals or whatever it may be. And we've also sort of said that this is a stretch goal and it's at the outset we don't know how to achieve it. It almost seems impossible.   0:02:31.8 John Dues: And so for us, the key thing we're working on at United Schools here in Columbus is that we've have this really high chronic absenteeism rate coming out of the pandemic, and we have a goal to get that down much lower. So right now, about 50% of our kids are chronically absent. And I think I've said this before, we're trying to get that down to closer to something like 5%. So it's a pretty, pretty weighty problem and a pretty, very ambitious goal, I would say.   0:03:04.3 Andrew Stotz: Yep.   0:03:06.7 John Dues: So last time, what we said was, at this stage in the process, we've stepped back, we looked at some tools that help us see the system, and now we're doing that same thing for defining the problem. And we talked about there's some really useful questions to ask at this stage. The first one that we talked about as a group is how is the project being funneled from a general to more specific problem? We start with this sort of broad problem about chronic absenteeism, and we're trying to narrow the specific problem that we're going to work on. And then once we have that narrower view, we'll get all the way down and answer the question, what is the precise problem statement? And that's kind of our focus for today.   0:03:57.8 John Dues: Now, we won't get to the precise problem statement today, but we're trying to figure out the things that we need to do to get there. So last episode, I reviewed a tool we use at this step in the process called a Problem Statement Readiness Check. So we wrote this problem focus area, and this is really important. I've repeated this like, we use these tools because it helps us organize the group's thoughts and put it into writing. And that's really, really powerful. So we wrote this problem focus area, this sort of broader sort of characterization of the problem as we see it.   0:04:34.4 John Dues: And then we just listed out, what have we learned so far? What insights have we gained? And then we also listed a number of questions that still needed to be answered. And then we basically, as a group, we have this improvement team that meets weekly on Friday mornings. Then we filtered all that learning through six questions. First question is, has our team investigated multiple perspectives on the problem focus area? And actually, in the document, we write our evidence, and then we say, do we feel like the evidence is weighty enough that we've met the standard of that question, yes or no? So that particular question, we check no.   0:05:20.6 John Dues: The second question was, have you challenged assumptions our team held about why the problem occurs? And again, we've done some of that, but we were like, overall I don't think we've challenged enough of those assumptions. So we checked no for that question as well. And then we said, have you gained useful insight into why previous efforts haven't been successful? And we said no to that one.   0:05:45.7 John Dues: And the last two questions were, has your team gained sufficient insight into student needs to give you confidence that you know which kinds of improvements will lead to improved student experiences outcomes? Said no to that one. And then the last question was, have you identified existing school based practices or processes connected to the problem that might be improved? And for that one we said yes. And so again, there's no right or wrong answers here. But by having these six questions, a key sort of step at this point is down at the bottom it says, if the team checks three or more boxes, we'll move on to draft the problem statement, that precise problem statement. And if the team hasn't checked at least three yeses, then we're not going to do that. We sort of feel like if we haven't answered at least half of those questions to our satisfaction, then there's probably some more learning that needs to happen. So in this case, this is... Oh, sorry, go ahead.   0:06:42.5 Andrew Stotz: I wanted to ask because I know sometimes people probably would sit in something like this and they're like, come on, why do we have to go through all this? We know what the problem is, let's go, let's solve it now. What is the risk if you skip this type of stuff?   0:07:00.4 John Dues: Well, and that's... Interestingly, this group is mainly made up of a couple principals, a couple deans on the dean of student side or we have these dean of family and community engagements that are really involved with families especially that have attendance issues. There's a couple people that are sort of like attendance officers and then there's a couple sort of systems leaders, myself and another guy. And in this group, you don't actually have a lot of that. Where you get a lot of that type of thing is when you have the CEO or the superintendent in the room and there's a lot of urgency and pressure on those folks coming from different constituencies. But the problem is if you don't sort of slow down and study it and do that thoroughly, then what happens is you move forward. The solutions are miss, sort of, aligned to the problem and you end up wasting resources, time, money, whatever.   0:07:57.9 Andrew Stotz: And I guess you lose credibility too, that you go back and say, okay, now we're going to do our next thing. Well, we didn't really really succeed with our last one.   0:08:07.6 John Dues: Yeah. And in education, especially urban education, but in education generally, the average urban superintendent is at the helm for about three years. And so what happens is that they then turn over and there's a whole nother set of initiatives that the new person brings. And we call this initiative fatigue, where you constantly have these initiatives. Most of the people on the front line know these things aren't going to work from the outset because it's not the real problems that they're seeing in their classrooms and they sort of have to go along to get along type of deal. But over time, you just sort of wear people out and then they stop really trying that improvement. But with this team, what we're doing, we have the people that are on the ground sort of dealing with these attendance issues day to day, and they're a part of building the solution. So they have a lot of investment, I think, in developing the solution on the front end.   0:09:02.6 Andrew Stotz: A little corollary to that is the idea of family businesses versus public companies. In family businesses in Asia and particularly, which I'm familiar with, they have an amazing ability to have continuity in senior leadership in the values and that type of thing that you see is very hard to have in public company unless they're run by the founder and the founders... And it's... And the founder's been running it for 20 years or whatever.   0:09:29.5 John Dues: Yeah.   0:09:29.9 Andrew Stotz: In fact, I see in my own coffee business that just the fact that my business partner, the founder, has been running it for 30 years brings something that our competitors don't have.   0:09:40.3 John Dues: Yep, absolutely. And stability that... Sorry. Sorry, go ahead.   0:09:44.8 Andrew Stotz: No, I mean, and that can become a competitive advantage. And so I was just curious too about public versus private schools. I'm assuming that private schools in America have more ability to have the continuity of leadership or is that not the case?   0:10:03.9 John Dues: Well, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't have the data to say, one way or the other. I would suspect that in a private setting there may be more leadership stability. I mean, the other thing that you're having to deal with in a public school system, most public school systems, traditional public school systems especially, is there's a publicly elected board that those five or seven people are who the superintendent reports to and those people they turn over as elections occur on a staggered basis. And so, yeah, I mean, getting that continuity is really, really tough. And so I think finding especially of larger districts, especially of urban districts, finding that continuity of leadership, especially at the superintendent level, is very difficult for those reasons.   0:10:58.4 Andrew Stotz: So I'm going to stop and talk for just a second about that because one of the lessons I've learned in business and in life is that when you identify that everybody's doing this thing and they're all kind of bound by this and they're stuck in this situation, that is your opportunity to differentiate.   0:11:12.8 John Dues: Yeah.   0:11:13.3 Andrew Stotz: Once you identify that point, everything you can do, knowing they're tangled up in this problem, in this mess that they cannot break free from unless they have a huge amount of political will or force of will, then you know that if you could do something differently, you would be able to differentiate your school, your business, your social enterprise or whatever it is. So it's a great little trigger to something I'm always looking for in business.   0:11:40.4 John Dues: Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. That continuity of leadership is a key differentiator if you can have stable leadership. No doubt. It's hard to get anything done if you don't, especially in a complex system. But in this particular case, as you would imagine, if five of the six answers to those questions were no, we didn't do enough study yet or we don't have enough understanding yet then the team obviously concluded that we didn't have enough information to write a precise problem statement. And this is where I talk to people because we do have this improvement model. And then it's under that is this improvement process. And there are steps, but it's not a recipe.   0:12:19.1 John Dues: So you can't just go from step one to two to three to four and four to five. And some people sort of get that and some people don't like that messier process. And this is sort of where the art comes in. But one of the key tools in this case that we're using, and we've talked about it before, is we don't have enough information. Typically, we start running experiments later in the process, PDSA cycles, Plan, Do Study, Act cycles. When we have a set of solutions, we want to start testing them. But there's other times you can use PDSA. I actually recommend doing this pretty early in the process when you need to gather more information or run a mini experiment. That's the perfect time, no matter what step it is, to run a PDSA cycle and start to gather that information, because otherwise, with this process, it can become a little disconnected. You can talk about things forever.   0:13:15.4 John Dues: And so you do wanna think, you do wanna slow down, you wanna be deliberate, but you also wanna run some tests right away and start small and start to learn some things that will later on inform the full set of interventions you're going to try or the full set of solutions you're going to try. So that's what we did in this particular case where we didn't feel like we had enough information to write the problem statement, we said, let's stop and let's run a PDSA cycle. So I'll just kind of walk through the objective of this first cycle. So we ran this right before break.   0:13:51.9 John Dues: So we ran it for 20 days right before our winter break, so sort of like the second half of December. And so the objective of this particular PDSA and this is sort of will take us to the end of this episode is, we already know that there's this high percentage of students that have significant attendance challenges. We know that average daily attendance across our four campuses is somewhere between 85 and 88%, and chronic absenteeism is somewhere in the low 40% range. So that's information we've started to gather. We know all that. We know there's this problem. But while the attendance team, they have some definite thoughts on what's causing so many students to miss so much school, things we've talked about, transportation, health, family instability. But we really wanted to test those assumptions early on through this structured format, this structured PDSA cycle.   0:14:56.4 John Dues: And so what we did... And again, especially at the start, if it's the first cycle in a project, you want to have a pretty narrow focus. So with this PDSA cycle, what we're going to do is... Or what we did was we picked one student. Sounds kind of crazy. You got all these students you need to help. But we picked one student at each campus. And so we have this improvement team that has people from each campus. And we said, what's a student that you'd want to dig into and learn some more about that's having attendance issues? And there's no shortage of students to pick. But what we settled on was the kind of the frame was, here are four students that are having attendance issues. And we've had trouble really figuring out what the cause is.   0:15:43.5 John Dues: So if we're going to focus on just one student on our campus, let's pick one where we've had some struggles to find additional information. So what we did was, pick those four students, and then we started tracking their attendance very closely over those three weeks of the PDSA cycle. And we came up with a system to categorize every single absence event. And it was a sort of predetermined list, like a validated list, so that it was kind of a balance between having simply qualitative perceptions of why kids are absent and we didn't want to just have like five reasons either that they need some more detail. You actually don't know enough if you just put transportation.   0:16:30.7 John Dues: So we ended up with about a list of about 20 or so, and that kind of got adjusted at the start of the cycle. And then what we did was, we sat down and talked with those students and their families, every one of those four. So the team, the school based team, there was a point person or two that sat down and kind of dug into the attendance challenges with the students and their parents and started categorizing and adding context to the various absences that had happened up to that point in the year. And then also across those three weeks, right?   0:17:07.1 John Dues: And then a key part of this is, so we kind of outline that as an objective. And then we said, okay, while this isn't like a really intense attendance intervention, it is an intervention to sit down and talk with people and try to categorize and problem solve a little bit about what the problems are and how might the parent get the kid to school over those next three weeks.   0:17:31.0 John Dues: So at this point, one of the things that we did, and this is where we'll pick back up next week or the next time we talk with the plan is, we had our team members predict, what do you think is gonna happen when we sit down and have these conversations? And do you think the conversations in and of themselves are gonna impact the students attendance rates? And I think that's a good place to pick up in our next conversation. It was pretty fascinating, the first experiment, actually. So I think listeners will get a lot out of hearing those results in our next session.   0:18:10.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, it's exciting as we've gone through this, thinking about how we can apply all this into, I've been taking tons of notes from our discussions on this, and I know the other listeners and viewers are to try to think about how do we adjust our own way of even thinking about improvement. And I know from my perspective, I think I would argue that my discussions with you have helped me to slow down in my improvement process.   0:18:40.7 John Dues: Yeah, I think that's often... I mean, because there's so much urgency to... And whatever our business area is, urgency to get it right, urgency to change, urgency to improve. But like what I see in schools, schools have an attendance problem. And I'm sure there's some schools that do a really good job on this front. But a lot of schools, what they're going to do is they're going to have some type of attendance incentive. We're going to have pizza party Fridays if you came all week. Might that have some short term impact? Maybe. But you're not solving the actual problems that are leading to the attendance challenges in the first place. So...   0:19:20.7 Andrew Stotz: In my online Valuation Masterclass Bootcamp, one of the big improvements that I've worked on is I've realized that I don't think we've defined the assignments as well as we could. And so I'm looking at the outcome and I'm thinking, the outcome isn't what I want. I want it better. And then I realize I've got to go back. And all of a sudden, two bootcamps ago, it made me realize I need to actually physically separate the lecture on the assignment.   0:19:54.5 Andrew Stotz: And so I've now, for every week of the six weeks on Mondays, I release a video and I say, this is your assignment and here's all the questions you're going to have. But more importantly, what I always do is I say, this is what it should look like. This is from the prior best example from last class. And all I ask of you is to try to beat this.   0:20:21.3 John Dues: That's great. Yeah.   0:20:22.5 Andrew Stotz: And then students are inspired and they're seeing, you could say, well, you just giving them the... You're giving them the result, okay, so my students are doing studies on industry in particular, what I'm talking about like the automotive industry. So they may see a prior students that just got an A plus, they were great. I don't give grades in the bootcamp, but let's say it's A plus work. Great. I'm happy to show them that and let them see that and say, now I want to challenge you to do better.   0:20:49.3 Andrew Stotz: And I think that is another addition. And I'm finding we're getting a lot less questions. The only questions we're getting from the people that haven't watched that video, if they haven't watched the assignment video, then they have all these questions. But also what's fascinating is that what we're seeing is a much improved outcome. And all of a sudden, as a teacher, on our feedback Fridays, when the students are presenting their work of the week, I'm spending a lot less time going, wait a minute, you got a grammar mistake in there or you got this or that or all that stuff's gone and now I'm focusing on the quality of their logic and their argument and that type of thing, which is exactly what I want to be doing. So just the idea of constantly improving is just so exciting.   0:21:35.2 John Dues: Yeah, I think... And I think a lot of people on our team have this natural inclination to sit down... Want to sit down with families, spend time with them and problem solve some of these issues. But when you zoom out and look at the problem and how big it is, you don't know where to start. So this gave people a place. One student, like, have one longer... I know we can't do this probably with all our kids across the entire school, but let's do this with one student and see what we learn and then use that learning to build the next cycle. And that's really what this is about, is that the power of the PDSA at any point in the improvement process, whether it's testing intervention or in a scenario like this where you need to get more information before you go on to the next step. I think PDSA can be used at any time of an improvement project.   0:22:27.9 Andrew Stotz: Wonderful. Well, John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion and for listeners. Remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book, Win Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on Amazon.com and this is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. People are entitled to joy in work.

In the final episode of the series, Jacob Stoller and Andrew Stotz discuss the difference between typical companies using traditional management and more successful Deming-style companies. If productivity and performance are so much better, why do companies stick with traditional management? TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 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, I continue my discussion and conversation with Jacob Stoller, Shingo Prize winning author of The Lean CEO. And ladies and gentlemen, I just received my copy finally. Productivity Reimagined, it just arrived from Amazon. You can get it there. And that's the latest book that he's come out with. And this is exploring applying Lean and Deming Management Principles at the enterprise level. The topic for today is moving forward with productivity. Jacob, take it away.   0:00:41.7 Jacob Stoller: Oh, thank you, Andrew. Great to be here once again. Yeah. Moving forward. That's really Chapter 13. Whether you consider that, hopefully you consider 13 lucky as I think they do in Italy.   0:00:57.4 AS: We do in Thailand.   0:01:00.4 JS: Oh, really? Wonderful. Okay. Perfect. Anyway, so I wrote in the book, I sort of defined where we're trying to go by describing two companies; a typical company, and then the company that we would aspire to for maximum productivity. So I'm gonna read those, just to illustrate. "Company A follows traditional top-down management practices. Leaders determine how the work is to be done, and give orders to their staff accordingly. Individuals, functional groups and departments are treated as independent entities under centralized control. Pay and promotion are determined by individual performance according to a set of predetermined criteria. Employees are ranked and encouraged to compete with each other." So that's company A, your typical company, which probably comprises what percentage would you say? 90%? 95%?   0:02:03.8 AS: 97.9%   0:02:04.4 JS: Okay. Okay. Let's look at where we'd like to go from there. "Company B is managed as an interactive system where people and functional teams depend on each other. Supervisors aren't expected to have all the answers, and they rely on frontline workers to share their workplace knowledge and take an active role in improving their work processes. All employees know they are part of a team culture pursuing common goals and solving problems together to move the company forward." Okay, so that's really, that's where we wanna be. And the reason you would want to go there is because if you take those two companies and they have similar resources, similar markets, perhaps operating in similar region, company B will outproduce company A 10 times out of 10. It's a more productive model, and it's proven to work. So why don't people do it?   0:03:16.3 JS: Well, there's some thinking that gets in the way, some sort of systemic kinds of barriers that are out there. So even people who aspire to making a company better, and I think there are a lot of people out there that think that, but they run into these barriers, and I'm just gonna review them again because we've gone through them in some detail. But the myth of segmented success, that's the really kind of the exact opposite of a company as a system. It's this idea that all the parts are interchangeable. You can take a department, you can give each department separate goals, and they'll all make their goals and it'll all add up. That's the myth, of course. So the myth of segmented success. We have really stemming out of that the myth of the bottom line.   0:04:11.9 JS: And because of that segmented structure, we believe that we can use finance as a proxy for all the quantitative, all the accomplishments of all these different segments. It all adds up. It's arithmetic. We figure, so why not? We just take, everyone makes their numbers, and then they all make their numbers and they all celebrate together. That's the myth, of course. The bottom line doesn't tell you what's really going on in the company. The top-down knowledge myth they run into, and that's this whole idea that managers are supposed to know all the answers, and their job is to tell people what to do. And it's not just people with MBAs. It's people with degrees in psychology and maybe working in HR. It's engineers, it's any person with professional training, figures that they have not only the privilege, but a duty to actually tell people what to do. And if I'm not telling people what to do, I'm probably not doing my job and somebody's going to be looking over my shoulder. So a big fear around that.   0:05:31.6 JS: Myth number four is the myth of sticks and carrots. And this is this idea of Homo Economicus, the idea that people act in their own financial interest and it's perfectly predictable. Performance is down? Well, let's just pay them more or maybe we need some threats here. Maybe we need to threaten them, or maybe we need to get some competition. So somebody is gonna be a little bit worried looking over their shoulder that they might get fired. Fear is a big factor here, obviously. Finally, there's the myth of tech omnipotence. And this stems right from the myth of segmented success. This idea we can take a process and we can swap out technology, we can put in technology and swap out people. We can reduce head count by 5, 10, 15 people and put in a machine in its place. That's been the business case for technology for decades. And we still have a very strong belief in that. So that's kind of what we're stuck with, those myths. And we really have to crush those myths as we go along.   0:06:42.5 AS: You know, Jacob, I was just at a meeting yesterday with a very senior executive at a very large company in Thailand. And I was just talking to him, it's off the record, so we were just chatting, but he was talking about the challenges that they're facing, and I said, so how are your KPIs? And he said, KPIs are just killing us. They're causing us to be siloed. It's setting up competition in the company. People can't work together. And I asked him this question, like, what can you do about it? He says, not much. What am I gonna do? Remove the KPI system? No. We know...   0:07:31.1 JS: Isn't that interesting?   0:07:34.8 AS: That ultimately that's probably one of the best things that they could do and get people to work together. But it just, you know, he said something to me that just made me think about, for the listeners and the viewers out there who are running small and medium-sized businesses who feel disadvantaged so many times when they're fighting against the big giants...   0:07:53.6 JS: Yeah.   0:07:53.6 AS: Take comfort that you can change your business. But many of these big companies, they just can't. And they won't.   0:08:01.2 JS: Yeah.   0:08:03.5 AS: And they never will. So that's what's so great about these types of principles, both Lean, what you're talking about, Deming, is that if you're a business owner, it's a family business, it's your private business or a group of people that you have real control over the business, you can implement these things. And you can build your business to be great.   0:08:23.7 JS: That's interesting, Andrew. I've talked in my book, I've talked with some smaller manufacturers, and at least a couple of them have said they're getting refugees from large corporations. And he'll interview these people and say, well, I can't give you, you know, you won't have 500 people reporting to you or anything. And they say, I don't care. I said, I really, you know, I've had it with this corporate stuff, and they want to be part of a culture that makes a difference. And so that's maybe catching on. I mean, interesting that the gentleman you're talking with also recognized that.   0:09:00.3 AS: Yeah. And he's just as, his hands are tied in some ways. And, so, but that to me is hopeful for the rest of the businesses that can change. And the other thing I was, you know, I always end with my favorite quote from Dr. Deming, which is that people are entitled to joy in work. Yesterday I was speaking to about 75 students in my Ethics in Finance class, and it's the kickoff day. And so it's a real fun, and I talk about a bunch of things, but the one thing I said is that ever since I graduated from university, all I really wanted was a job that I enjoyed, at a place that I enjoyed doing it, with the people I enjoyed doing it with. That's all I wanted. I wanted joy in work and I got it because I walked away from the places and the people where it wasn't happening, and I walked towards the places where I had the opportunity to enjoy it. Of course it helps that I found my love, which is being a financial analyst. It's just, I understand that so well, but this is where I think I want us to think about hope and potential for happiness in work and all of that. And so I know you've got some more steps that you've got to help people. So maybe we move into that.   0:10:27.7 JS: Sure. Sure. Well, and it would be interesting, this gentleman you talked with, I wonder if he's visited any companies that we would admire that are using Deming principles, or maybe...   0:10:39.1 AS: Well, it may give it away, but this company in the past has fully implemented the teachings of Dr. Deming.   0:10:49.2 JS: Oh, really?   0:10:51.5 AS: But they had a changeover in management, and they completely walked away from this and implemented the KPI system.   0:11:00.9 JS: Yeah. Oh my. Isn't that something? Yeah, that happens. That happens for sure. And we've had, you know, in my last book, The Lean CEO, I found some people, number of companies had fallen off the ladder. And gosh, the Shingo Institute had a real problem with that. People were winning Shingo prizes and then they were falling off the ladder, and they changed their emphasis on criteria now, and now they really emphasize culture. You can't just follow the principles, but you really have to get the culture, and they really grill them on that. So, interesting. Interesting.   0:11:38.2 AS: Yeah.   0:11:41.0 JS: But the first step, the reason I asked you if they've visited anybody is really, I think if you're starting from scratch at company A, I think the first thing is to go visit companies.   0:11:48.6 AS: Yep.   0:11:49.5 JS: I mean, you've got to see what's going on in companies that are different to even appreciate what's possible. And it's...   0:12:00.6 AS: 'Cause it's inspiring.   0:12:00.7 JS: It's not only inspiring, but you see things that you wouldn't expect to see. And I think what they said, what these folks have told me over and over again is that what you see is you actually feel it. There's a culture in there, there's a kind of an atmosphere when you walk in the door. And that's what really wows people. I hear that over and over again. So you have to feel that, you can't write that down, or you can't explain that in a talk. So I think that's really the first step. And fortunately, companies that have gone through these transformations are happy to welcome people to come visit, because it helps them reinforce their culture as well. So it's a reinforcing kind of thing. I think after you've done that, gone the rounds a bit, that's when you really need to assess where you are and what you wanna be. And I think there has to be some honest criticism about the kind of company you are. I don't know if you wanna call it soul-searching, but there's not a realization that we don't wanna go on as we were, you're really not gonna do much. So that's, I think, critically important. You're smiling. Do you have a story there?   0:13:20.8 AS: No, but I'm just, you know, it makes sense. It makes sense. I did actually, you know, in Thailand there was a company that I saw in the newspaper many years ago that it came out in the newspaper that they won the Deming Prize from Japan, from the Union of Scientists in Japan. And so I just called the company and I said, congratulations. And they said, great, thank you. And then I said, and I talked to the CEO of the company, and then I said, could I bring my staff from my coffee, you know, management team from the coffee business to come and see you guys? And he said, yeah. And that started a lifelong friendship with a guy named Srini, who was the guy who won that. He passed away about a year or two ago. And I featured him in my book on Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming's 14 Points. But the idea is...   0:14:11.0 JS: Oh yeah...   0:14:12.7 AS: Go out and...   0:14:14.0 JS: I love that book.   0:14:16.2 AS: Explore and see it, see what's out there.   0:14:16.3 JS: Yeah. For sure.   0:14:17.5 AS: Because you also, when you go out and explore, you also find out, hey, we're pretty good at some of these things and there's things that we're doing well, you know?   0:14:23.5 JS: Of course, of course. So once you've assessed your state, I think it's very, very important, even before you start talking to your people, 'cause it's gonna be a transformation, you're gonna demand an awful lot from your people, you've really got to know where you're going, and you have to establish a vision. And companies have different ways of doing that. But the one thing I would emphasize is that it's gotta be a vision with substance. And I think Dr. Deming would say, by what method? [laughter] You say where you're going. Right? So, for example, a hospital. I saw a hospital that did a very good job of that, establishing a vision, and they wanted to be the safest and most compassionate hospital in their region. They said, well, what would that look like?   0:15:13.3 JS: And they looked at, well, okay, safety would obviously be big. There would be fiscal responsibility. Wait time is a big issue in healthcare, be no waiting. I think there may have been one more as well. But anyway, they established these kinds of what I would call aspirational goals. It's where we, really where we want to be, and it's gotta be something that inspires employees, right? You wanna be a compassionate, safe place for patients to come. I mean, that's what people want. So then what they do is they took it a level down, and they said, okay, well, if we're going to have an exemplary safety record, what would that look like? How would we measure it? And they have safe... The health organizations have safety statistics. So, they have an institution, that third party organization that would report on the numbers, so they could set some targets according to that. And then they go down even further. They say, okay, safety. What are the things that we need to do? What are some of our weaknesses? So they say, well, patient falls was one of them. They have things like medication error, hospital acquired illnesses. So all this goes under the idea of no harm to patients, right?   0:16:44.0 AS: Yeah.   0:16:45.3 JS: All goes together. So, they then started to work on the most pressing one. You know, work on targets, do projects together, PDSA kinds of projects. And they chipped away at it and eventually with a number of projects, they were very successful. But I think the key, of course, is that problems in workplaces and hospitals, maybe especially, are very granular in lots and lots of things, so you need all hands on deck. But they were very, very successful at getting a very high rating just through these efforts. So, that's...   [overlapping conversation]   0:17:28.8 AS: Yeah, the vision with substance is a great one because I think lots of visions are flaky, and we've been working on the vision for Coffee Works, for my company, and that is we supply coffee to every leading brand in Thailand. And that's something that we can visualize, the employees can visualize, they can also see who we don't serve. And also when we lose a customer that's a leading brand, we can say we messed up, but when your contract's up with our competitor, we're gonna be back because we supply every leading brand in Thailand.   0:18:08.0 JS: Right, right.   0:18:10.3 AS: So, substance, vision. Yep.   0:18:13.3 JS: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I guess you share that, been sharing that kind of vision with your people for a long time, right?   0:18:18.3 AS: Yep.   0:18:21.6 JS: But I mean, would you say, how important would you say vision is? I mean...   0:18:23.2 AS: I think it's critical. And I think that part of what happens is that many companies start with a vision, and then they get, it's just so easy to get distracted. And there's so many, you know, business just grows complex, and then all of a sudden you feel like, we can do all of this, we can do this, we can do that, we can do this, we can do that. The best book on this is Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. And he talks a lot about what are bad strategies, and he talks about these fluffy visions that really don't help anybody. And so getting a vision with substance, I think is critical.   0:18:58.0 JS: Okay. So we got our vision, it's got real teeth. It's something that we can stand in front of our people and say, here's what we're going to do. And they won't say, oh, this is just another flavor of the month. They'll realize that we're serious and we're gonna do this. The next step, number four, is building trust. And that's extremely important. And one of the manufacturer actually told me a wonderful story about this. He was working in a very... Had a plant in a very rough neighborhood in Baltimore. And when he took over that plant as a general manager, there was terrible culture. People were... He said there was racism and there were just people quitting all the time. And just walking out the door, not showing up to work. You know, the workers hated management.   0:19:56.7 JS: So this guy went in onto the shop floors. I'm your new general manager. And he said he spent the first three or four months just talking to them about their lives. You know, he was committed to the Lean methodology, but he didn't talk about methods, how we're gonna do things different. He just found out what's important to these people. And a lot of 'em were financially strapped. They were in poor neighborhoods. So the direction was really how to make this company more profitable so we can pay you more. And that was kind of a guiding vision and remarkably successful how it did. How he won the people over. And I think there's so many people out there asking people to do things. And, you know, you really have to... Takes a lot of trust. I mean, you're gonna say, I'm gonna admit when I've made a mistake, I'm not gonna cover it up and you're not gonna fire me. You know, that's never happened. So...   0:21:02.9 AS: And I can tell you, for the listeners and the viewers out there, here's a good inspiring movie to get you an idea of thinking about how to get out on the shop floor and understand from the inside what's happening in the business. And the movie came out in 1980, and it's called Brubaker by Robert Redford. And it's the story of a new prisoner warden.   0:21:25.2 JS: Oh, I never saw it.   0:21:27.0 AS: Yeah. Prison warden who goes in as a prisoner, and the governor of the state has sent him in as a prisoner. And so he lives a prisoner's life for, I don't know how long it was, a week, a couple weeks, a month, until eventually he, you know, reveals himself and then takes over. And then he knew all the corruption and all the problems and all the issues, and he went about solving 'em. It's an inspiring movie.   0:21:54.2 JS: Yeah. And more recently, there was a program, I've seen a couple of episodes of Undercover CEO, you know, where CEO actually goes into the workplace in disguise and flips burgers or whatever. And then discovers what's really going on in the company.   0:22:09.2 AS: Yeah, that's a great. That's probably even more applicable.   0:22:11.2 JS: Yeah. Right. So building trust is just... It's very personal. And from that point, you start to make changes. But those changes... My favorite examples, I don't know if this is a general rule, but some of the best examples I've seen are working on safety. You work on safety because improving processes to make them safer is actually kind of like a gateway drug to doing continuous improvement, right? You start to understand what processes are, but first of all, people are improving the process in their own interest.   0:22:50.8 AS: Yep.   0:22:52.2 JS: So you get them very good at making these changes, proposing changes, speaking out, pointing out when other people are not following safety guidelines. Understanding that something has to stop when safety is not there. No, you build on the trust you created and you start to change the culture around that. So that's number five. So you notice I've gone five steps and we haven't introduced any methods or anything. You know, it's...   0:23:23.8 AS: What I noticed from those first five is that they're really all things that senior management need to do before they go out with all their exciting new ideas and start training people and start really bringing that out in a much more aggressive way.   0:23:41.5 JS: Exactly. So really step six is train and transform. And that's when we do all the... That's when we draw the diagrams, and that's when we start the PDSA training or the Kaizen events or whichever type of transformation you're doing. That's when we start to train the workforce and we start to undergo the transformation. So that's all the work, but the transforming work. But we've done enormous preparation before we get there. And I think that's what I've seen is the best way to do it. So we train and transform, and then of course we have to remove barriers as they come. So it might be removing some aspects of the accounting system because they might be holding us back. So you run into the barriers and you take on those barriers as you run into them and you build momentum.   0:24:36.3 AS: Yep.   0:24:38.6 JS: So step seven really is you're building this momentum and you raise the bar. You've done something and now you raise your standards and continue to raise them. And that leads you to a continually improving organization where you're always expecting to get better. People have a joy in work because they know that they're part of making something better. And you continue raising the bar 'cause people like a challenge.   0:25:07.9 AS: Yep.   0:25:08.5 JS: As long as it's a safe environment and as long as it's a team kind of self-supporting workplace. So finally we get to share and learn. So we've gone full circle. You know, you've got... You've gone through a transformation, you're proud of your work, and you start to open the door to visitors because that's where you really reinforce the culture. And, I don't know, you have... You say you have visitors at the coffee place?   0:25:45.9 AS: Yeah. I mean, for me, I just love going to companies that do like to share and learn. And I like to do that too. We get students, a lot of times it'll be like executive MBA students coming to Thailand and others that I'll bring out to the factory, so to get them to see how we do things. But I just personally love to... Well, it's great when you go out to a place, and there's a lot of factories in Thailand for sure where you can just see that they have a vision of what they're doing and they clearly communicate it. I had a company that I saw in the financial data many years ago when I was an analyst that really did something very odd, which was their cash conversion cycle was negative. Normally it's a positive thing for a manufacturing company 'cause they have a lot of inventory and accounts receivable and the like.   0:26:34.9 AS: And so I went out and I met with the CEO and then I said, how did you do this? He said, it took us five years, but we brought our inventory down to seven days of inventory. And how did you do it? And he took me out on the factory floor to meet all the different people doing it. And he said, I put people in teams and they work together and they try to figure out how do we reduce the inventory here? I help them see the overhead cost that's coming from the executives so they could calculate a P&L and understand like, how can they make their section, you know, better? And then he had some of the guys come and speak and explain what they were doing, some of the supervisors and managers on the shop floor. And I was like, wow, this was impressive. So love that sharing and learning.   0:27:22.7 JS: Yeah. No, it's great. And I've had wonderful visits where people are so excited about their work that you think, wow. And of course that means they're really, really productive. I mean, they just... They're doing it because they love it and it's... You can't compare with that kind of creativity that you get from that. So I guess that I'd like to talk a little about the competitive advantages here of taking this journey and, you know, that's the whole point. Productivity becomes your competitive advantage. You outproduce other companies with similar resources. And I believe that the way the world is changing right now, that competitive advantage for company B type companies is going to grow as things... And I have four reasons I cite for that.   0:28:21.0 JS: Reason one is flexibility, adaptability, agility, whatever you wanna call it. You know, we're going with manufacturing and services too much more into high mix, low volume type scenarios. So the mass production machinery approach has just become less and less relevant to manufacturing and also with services as well because it's not... It's less a ones size fits all kinda world. That's one very strong reason. The ability to hire talent. You know, we're just starting to see that. You know, people don't wanna work for these corporations that they feel don't have purpose. And couple of manufacturers actually told me, and this is in the US, I don't know how that compares with Thailand, but in the US he said there's a real crisis not just 'cause people maybe don't have jobs, but because people don't have purpose in their work, so people go home depressed, they take drugs and they've done medical studies on this.   0:29:30.3 JS: You know, if you don't have purpose in your work and you're doing something even though you know it's dumb and you're doing it anyway, just, you know, because to please the boss or whatever, that places huge stress on people. And there are actually medical... They've done medical studies on that, people who work in those kinds of jobs, on the negative effects. So anyway, I think getting the best talent, I hear that more and more anyone I talk to, and I think that's gonna be more and more of a factor. There's a whole deglobalization process going on right now. A lot of reshoring here in North America. People, you know, companies really realizing that sort of the fallacy of having these very, very long supply chains. So it's all about now shortening that supply chain, having immediate suppliers that are close.   0:30:23.9 JS: I mean, that's the only way you're gonna get your inventory turns down to 50 or whatever your friend was talking about. Right? And finally on climate change, that's getting tougher and tougher to deal with. And it's not just about governments not acting, but it's going to be scarcity of resources. It's going to be having to run businesses in difficult climate circumstances. It's gonna be government regulation. It's going to be whether people will come and work for companies that aren't making... Doing their bit to combat this. So those four reasons, I think that's a competitive advantage that's going to grow. And I think it's urgent that corporations act, and Dr. Deming warned that there'd be a crisis coming if companies kept running the way they were, and the crisis is here. We've arrived and, you know, the statistics are terrible. Don't have to bore you with those, but, you know, it's a very rough world and we need, obviously governments will have to act, but we need better companies. Now... Sorry, go ahead.   0:31:48.2 AS: I was... Yeah, that's why he entitled this book Out of the Crisis 'cause there was a crisis then, and the fact is there's still, and it's so many things are harder too particularly in the US with reshoring and that type of thing because education has been decimated also in the US so it's very hard to bring back, you know, engineering prowess and things like that, so. Yep.   0:32:14.1 JS: Yeah, for sure. So I... My sort of wrap up comment would be, answer to your question, not really a question, but your title, you talked about boosting Lean with Deming. So, you know, when we chat about this, but you know what, I was thinking about this, what as a person who wrote about Lean initially and then took a much deeper dive into Deming, what does Deming add, from my perspective? And what excites me the most about Dr. Deming is that I think he was less interested in maybe methods and more interested in fundamental truths. I mean, he really, I think put forward what are really fundamental truths about people, about the physical world and about how people in the physical world interact. And these are, like I say, this is not slogans or anything like this, this is science. I mean, these are proven scientific principles and I think those principles underline any method you use. You know, if you're really following that. And I'm not a Deming scholar enough to be able to say that that's what he meant by profound knowledge. But when you use the term profound knowledge, that's what that means to me. It means just a very fundamental knowledge of the way things work.   0:33:49.8 AS: Yeah. Well, it's exciting to think about how we can learn from what you've written about and what you've talked about. So ladies and gentlemen, the book is Productivity Reimagined: Shattering Performance Myths to Achieve Sustainable Growth. And I've really enjoyed our time, Jacob, to go through all the different myths and to hear the way you look at things which is coming from your direction originally, the Lean direction, and then bringing that thinking together with the teachings of Dr. Deming. So I just wanna thank you and give you the last word. If you'd like to wrap up for the listeners and the viewers to say, what's the main message you wanna get, want them to get out of all the... Out of the book and out of all of our discussion? How would you wrap it up?   0:34:45.4 JS: I would wrap it up by saying, let's look for those fundamental truths. You know, let's not look for slogans, let's not look for techniques. Let's look at what's really true about humans, about the physical world, and let's build our future based on that.   0:35:04.2 AS: Well, Jacob, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion right now and the prior discussions about each part of your book and the myths and the like. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey, and you can find Jacob's book, Productivity Reimagined, at jacobstoller.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to joy in work."

Before you start solving a problem, you need to know what, precisely, you're trying to solve. In this episode, John Dues and Andrew Stotz talk about how to figure out the problem on which you will focus your team's efforts. 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, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is, Define The Problem. John, take it away.   0:00:22.9 John Dues: Hey, Andrew. It's good to be back. Yeah. So, we've been going through this improvement model just as a refresher. Two episodes ago we looked at the three phases of performance measurement, research, accountability, and improvement. That was an important frame at the start of this process. And then in the last episode we discussed how we made sure in that first step of the model, we step back and see our system, see the full system in which we work. And I showed you some improvement tools that we use to visualize the improvement team or the group's thinking for each of a set of guiding questions. So, we looked at a system flow chart and that sort of said to us, within our system, kind of saw how things flow into the system, the things that we do, and then the outputs, and the questions there were, what's the largest system to improve on and what's the aim of that system? And then we took a look at an affinity diagram, and we used that just to answer the question, what are the opportunities for improvement within the target system? And then we used this tool called an interrelationship digraph, where we prioritize basically the various opportunities for improvement. And then it's been through this model that everybody can see these four steps that we're talking...   0:01:57.7 AS: Well, for the listeners, they may not be able to see, but for the viewers, yeah.   0:02:01.7 JD: For the listeners, they can't see it. But the model that we've been talking through, for sure, we've been working through this four-step improvement model, and we've spent most of our time on step one, which is set the challenge and direction. And we'll remain here at this point in the process today as well. And then later on in the series, we'll go on to the subsequent steps. So step two, grasp the current condition. Step three, establish your next target condition. Step four, experiment to overcome obstacles. And some of the first episodes in the series, we talked through just a high level overview of each of those things. And then we've also said that we wanna do all of these steps with a team that's made up of somebody that has Profound Knowledge, some number of people that have the authority to work or change or redesign the system, and in some number of people that are working in the system.   0:02:57.3 JD: So that's just kind of a refresher for those that have been following along. And again, in step one of this model, this is where we're at right now, we ask, where do we wanna be in the long run? And so we're really thinking about a longer range goal that will differentiate us from other organizations. So in our case, schools. And it seems nearly impossible at the outset. We've said that. And we've also talked about what's the right time period for this challenge or direction to be set for, in terms of out in the horizon? Then what I said was, somewhere in the neighborhood of six months to three years, sort of anything less than six months, it's just too fast to put the team together and really dive in and do the work that you need to do. Anything beyond three years, it just seems so far that, you now, things can kind of get away from you if you set the vision out that far.   0:03:48.8 JD: Not that it's impossible, but six months to three years seems to be a sweet spot in my perspective. And then I gave this example, we're working on this chronic absenteeism problem. Chronic absenteeism is when a student in a K-12 school is absent for more than 10% of the school year, and coming out of the pandemic, we've talked about a very high number of kids across the country in the United States are chronically absent. And in our particular system, like a lot of high poverty systems, those numbers are particularly stark. So over the last few years since the pandemic, the chronic absenteeism rate in our school system has been hovering right around 50%.   0:04:34.3 AS: It's just so incredible, every time I hear you say that, I just can't believe that.   0:04:38.3 JD: It is incredible, incredible. And we're trying to get that down, that number down to 5%. So it'd be a huge...   0:04:44.0 AS: Which is also an incredible stretch goal.   0:04:47.3 JD: Incredible stretch goal. Seems almost impossible. That's sort of how we've framed things in our school system.   0:04:54.4 AS: So let's stop there just for a second, because I think for the listeners and the viewers, what's your long range? Let's take three years. What is your three-year goal that is nearly impossible? Where do you wanna be? Yeah, I liked it the way, you know, the diagram that you're showing is kind of a mountain, and so why not think, what mountain do you wanna plant your flag on three years from now? And that really is what you're describing, what you guys are focused on is a very challenging goal, but for the listener and the viewer, what's yours?   0:05:31.4 JD: Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I mean, I think encouraging people to think through how they would step through this process, how they would frame goals within the system that they're working in, I think that's a really important sort of thought process to be going through as you're listening to, at least to our approach.   0:05:49.8 AS: Yep.   0:05:51.1 JD: So at this stage in the process, like I said, we've stepped back. We have this sort of long term goal. We've mapped out our system, we've talked about some opportunities for improvement and prioritize those. So at this stage in the process, the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna define the problem. We know we have an issue with chronic absenteeism, but we don't necessarily know what the specific problem is that we're going to work on. So they're, like, with See the System, and we had a set of guiding questions, similarly, we have a set of guiding questions that we're asking at this step in the process to find the problem.   0:06:32.1 JD: So the one that we're gonna focus on today is how is the project being funneled from a general to a more specific problem? So again, we've got this general problem area, chronic absenteeism. Some other guiding questions that we'll tackle later, what's the precise problem statement? What are key operational definitions, concepts that we're gonna measure? Who will benefit the most from the improvement effort? What are their needs? And then what's the vision for excellence? So those are all the things that we're tackling in this stage that we're calling Define the Problem. But we're gonna focus just on this one question today, how is the project being funneled from a general to a more specific problem?   0:07:19.1 JD: So, in our case, and we talked about this last time, by this point we've formed an improvement team. So we have an actual group of about 10 people cross-disciplinary, meaning different roles that are, and they're coming from different parts of our system, different departments, all four of our campuses are represented. So this is the improvement team that we've formed to work on this particular problem. And really what we're trying to do in this step is show the importance of this particular attempted improvement. And we're trying to paint a picture for everybody else that's not on the team why energy should be spent here instead of elsewhere. Because there's gonna have to be resources both obviously in people, money, whatever, deployed as a part of this effort. And we have any number of problems like most school systems...   [laughter]   0:08:19.7 JD: That we could focus on. And so we have to really paint the case for why we're gonna focus on chronic absenteeism.   0:08:27.3 AS: I have to tell you a story, John. When I was, I don't know, 10 years ago I went to visit my first boss who was so successful that he bought a piece of land in New Zealand, and it was a farm. And it was 250 square kilometers. So I went to visit him and he had a little house on this big farm, and it had all these mountains. And he looked at me and said, what mountain do you want to climb today? And I said, "That one." And so we climbed up that one, and I was there for five days and we had to take a break in between, 'cause it's pretty exhausting climbing up one of these mountains, but there was endless mountains, and you can't climb 'em all.   0:09:03.2 JD: Yeah.   0:09:03.7 AS: And you only have limited time, and you only have limited energy. So what mountain are you gonna climb? And I think part of what you're talking about, showing the importance of spending the energy here is that, you know, hey, this is a very hard challenge that we want to get to, and we have to explain that we cannot climb two of these mountains at the same time, and we cannot climb all of these mountains over a period of time. We have to really be able to focus and make the argument of why we're planting our flag on that particular mountain.   0:09:35.5 JD: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in terms of the team, one of the things we talked about last week was that, or last episode is that, one of the ways that we use this set of guiding questions for each step in the process is, we're tagging that guiding question to a tool that we use to visualize the group's thinking. So again, we're funneling from this sort of general problem, this mountain to climb to a more specific mountain to climb, so to speak. So we'll keep doing that today. And again, what we're trying to get to is what's the precise problem statement? But we have sort of a general area of focus now, and we're thinking about, are we ready to write that more precise problem statement? Or perhaps is there more study that's needed? And one of the things that we do is we use this tool called a Problem Statement Readiness Check.   0:10:41.0 JD: And, so basically, so the group's been working for about a month and a half, and so we have quite a bit of information that we've gathered about this process thus far. And part of the power of this Problem Statement Readiness Check is it puts all of that information in one place, or at least the most important information. So you can kind of see at the top for folks that are viewing, there's this general problem focus area. And basically this captures the problem as we understand it early in the process. And basically what it says is that our average daily attendance across our four campuses is between 85% and 88%. And currently chronic absenteeism rates are between 43% and 53% depending on the campus. High number of students are excessively absent or habitually truant.   0:11:39.1 JD: So those are sort of officially defined attendance terms in Ohio's attendance laws, basically. And that we... We know that, you know, fairly obvious that missing a high amount of school, missing a lot of school is detrimental to students and their ability to grow and achieve academically. So it's, also when you have, you know, so students that are experiencing these problems require a lot of intervention. And so when you have high numbers, obviously it becomes harder to intervene because it's an intensive process. And when you're interviewing with chronically absent students, school leaders are being pulled away from other things. So that's sort of part of the case that we're making for this being a worthy problem. Although it's not very hard actually to paint this picture.   0:12:35.4 AS: Right.   0:12:35.5 JD: And so we have this focus area. Then what we say is, what insights into the problem focus area are helpful? What learning has the potential to lead to effective solutions? So this is stuff we've done so far. Again, we're kind of summarizing where we are to date. So the leader of this group is saying, well, we created this affinity diagram. We have these six categories of problems that we could focus our attention on: Data, academic systems, communication, transportation, culture and engagement, our intervention systems. And then we use that in a relationship digraph to try to come up with what's the dominant cause of the attendance problem? And if you remember from last time, what we settled on when we looked at that digraph was transportation. But then we said, well, we're not gonna focus on transportation because we already have an improvement team in our system that's working on the transportation issues that we're seeing here in Columbus.   0:13:40.8 JD: The other thing is we're looking at a bucket of questions that remain to be answered. So after we looked at of all the data that we've gathered so far, the conversations that we've had, what questions remain to be answered, what do we still need to know as a team? Maybe what new questions has the problem analysis revealed? So some of those questions are things like, why aren't students coming to school consistently? What does the intervention process look like at each campus? There's variation, we've already found out there's variation in the campus... How the campuses intervene. What does the typical attendance intervention plan look like at the individual student level? Is that intervention process at each campus effective? How do we know? Are we tracking data? So you can start to see how there are a lot of questions to sort of consider even after you've done some study digging into your data.   0:14:37.7 JD: So that's sort of the first part of the problem focus... Sorry, the Problem Statement Readiness Check. So this is a worksheet that we use. And the second part is we have a series of six questions that we ask after the group has talked through that first part of the worksheet. And basically they're just yes/no questions. They're six questions. So the first question is, has our team investigated multiple perspectives on the problem focus area? And basically what we said there is the team basically understands a higher percentage of students are not coming to school consistently, but the team doesn't have a strong understanding of what those causes are. So in that case we checked no, we haven't investigated multiple perspectives. The second question is, have you challenged assumptions our team held about why the problem occurs?   0:15:37.3 JD: So you can imagine anytime you're working in team with or without data, people are gonna have these preconceived notions, "Oh, I know why kids don't come to school." It's this reason or that reason, right? These are assumptions that we have. So in terms of challenging those assumptions with data, with study, we said, no, we haven't done that. The third question is, have you gained useful insight into why previous efforts haven't been as successful as desired? Basically there we said not systematically. We haven't studied this issue for a while, so we checked no there. The fifth question is, has your team gained sufficient insight into students' needs to give you confidence that you know which kinds of improvement will lead to improve student experiences and outcomes? To that we said no. We haven't done a lot of talking to students and families about specific challenges individual students are facing.   0:16:31.5 JD: And then the last question is, have you identified existing school-based practices or processes connected to the problem that might be improved? So that was the one question that we checked yes to. So basically there's this little guidance done at the bottom, then of the worksheet. It says, if the team checks three or more boxes, we'll move on to draft the problem statement. Well, we only draft... Sorry, we only checked one of the six boxes as a yes. The other five were no. So we're basically saying there, we don't have enough information to write the specific problem statement that we're gonna work on. So we have to do something else that's going to give us additional information about our process. So you can see how this thing has, you know, it's starting to be funneled from sort of a general understanding that we have a problem with chronic absenteeism, a problem with students attending school consistently.   0:17:29.8 JD: We think we know generally some of the reasons that's happening, but we haven't done enough study to really understand the specific obstacles that individual students are facing. So, then we, you know, since we're not ready to write the problem statement, we have to think about, well, what do we do to dig in and get sort of additional information? And so in our case, what we decided to do next was a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. So this is a way, if properly designed, where we can get some of that additional information from students and families. So that's what we're in the process of doing right now. And it's been really interesting. So what we did was, so we started the PDSA a couple weeks ago. This sort of coincided with the end of our first grading period.   0:18:22.9 JD: We're on trimester, so this was at the end of November. And we knew that parent conferences were coming up during that time. So that would give us a unique chance to talk to some of the students and families that are having attendance issues. So basically what we did was we said, well, we're gonna talk to one student and one family member from each campus that's been chronically absent. And we created a structure for the PDSA. So the plan was, so we have a Dean of Family and Community Engagement at each campus, and they're the point person for this attendance work. And so the guy that's leading this project, he's like the System of Profound Knowledge coach, the improvement coach on this, he created a little interview protocol, and basically then the DFCEs, the family engagement person at each campus took the protocol and sat down with the family member to interview them.   0:19:24.0 JD: And they're basically asking, you know, if the person is missing days of school, they're asking why, what's going on, what are the obstacles? Sometimes, because Ohio counts attendance by hours, so sometimes families are consistently bringing their student late, and those one and two hour misses in the morning add up to days pretty quickly, or you get the vice versa where someone is coming to pick the student up early repeatedly for some reason. And then of course some folks have a combination of these things. But what we said was, let's get some information from specific families. And we made a prediction, we said, you know, if we talk to people about the attendance issue, start to gather some information from them and let them know that, hey, your child, your student has this attendance issue, we all then made predictions for, is this gonna have an impact?   0:20:23.5 JD: Just this little intervention, is this gonna have an impact on the attendance rates? So we're in the middle of this, now we're gathering this data. It's been really fascinating to see the information that was gathered, to see, like, on a day by day level, the specific reasons, not the attendance codes that get put into the system, like drilled down specific data, specific anecdotes about what's happening on any given day that leads to a kid missing all or part of a school day. So this is sort of the first part in our process, PDSA cycle one is just to gather this information to see, you know, get a better sense, a detailed sense of some of the obstacles that our families are facing when it comes to attendance.   0:21:08.9 AS: Like, I got up and I went out and started the car and it didn't start.   0:21:15.4 JD: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's a...   0:21:19.6 AS: So I gave up...   0:21:21.8 JD: Oh, sorry, go ahead.   0:21:22.1 AS: So I gave up and I thought, I can't be bothered with this. I've gotta take care of other stuff and whatever.   0:21:28.7 JD: Yeah, it's stuff like that. And we've talked about this bus issue that we're having in Columbus. So it's not uncommon for a bus to come late, an hour late in the morning to a student bus stop.   [overlapping conversation]   0:21:39.4 AS: Do you sit there for an hour, wait for it, or, you know?   0:21:42.9 JD: Tomorrow it's gonna be something like 19 degrees in Ohio. Are you gonna sit out there for an hour when it's 19 degrees and wait for your bus? Right? And maybe you go home and you're right, and the car doesn't start. Or we had a family tell us that the bus stop that the kid is assigned to is dangerous, you know? And so you start to dig into these things and they're very reasonable explanations for attendance issues.   0:22:12.6 AS: Yeah.   0:22:13.2 JD: And so this is a way for us to sort of dig into some of those questions to help us better define the problem. And we're spending a lot of time on these early stages. And what I typically tell people is these early stages, before we ever develop a solution, account for at least 50% of any of these projects, because we wanna be very sure that when we start solutions that the problem is well understood, otherwise if there's misalignment between that problem identification and then the solution, then we're just wasting time and spinning our wheels.   0:22:50.7 AS: What do you say to people, like, "Come on, this is so much work. I mean, let's just solve the problem. Come on, John. You know, it's a problem. We know it's out there. Let's go, let's solve it"?   0:23:00.8 JD: Yeah. I mean, that's actually something that, I mean, there's that. And then when you're in an improvement team, there's, I have many other responsibilities that I need to attend to. And for a team like this that's cross campus, we have to have the meeting somewhere. So we pick a campus, and that means the people at the other three campuses have to travel to the meeting. So there are sort of hardships or at least extra work that's associated with this. But we just sort of keep reminding people like, this deep study is worth it. And the good thing with us, I think, is that we're a very mission-driven organization. That mission orientation is assessed during the interview process. So the vast majority of people that work at United are very bought in and very driven by that mission. And something like this is a very mission-aligned effort. So it's not like we're trying to improve some web traffic or something like that that may be harder to find, maybe important, but maybe harder to find meaning in. This is kids' futures, like improving this...   0:24:16.6 AS: People are generally aligned.   0:24:17.7 JD: Have a significant... What's that?   0:24:19.7 AS: People are generally aligned.   0:24:22.6 JD: People are generally aligned. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm really interested, like I said, we're in the middle of this PDSA, so I'm really interested in what the outcome is gonna be. We're gonna run this for about 20 days, basically until our winter break here in about a week and a half, gather the data, we're gonna use that to go back and then see if we're ready to write this problem statement, basically.   0:24:44.8 AS: So how would you summarize today's discussion?   0:24:49.0 JD: Yeah. If I was gonna kind of recap where we are, just sort of overall, I'd say the first thing is we, as an organization, senior leadership team, we set this chronic absenteeism as a key priority, right? So that was set at the organizational level, our senior organizational level, this overall challenge. And then in talking with the team, because we're telling them for the first time, hey, this goal is to go from 50-ish percent down to 5%, so it's really important, again, with that team that we frame this as an improvement orientation. This is not an accountability orientation. This isn't an individual person's fault if we don't achieve this metric. This is a team effort. And people have to understand that because people, especially in education, really have this accountability sort of mindset ground in. So we have to sort of...   [overlapping conversation]   0:25:46.8 AS: Which can also bring in defensiveness or...   0:25:50.1 JD: Defensiveness or what's gonna happen if we don't meet these goals, those types of things. So we kind of constantly have to talk about that frame. I think it's important for that challenge to be quantitative. So it's very clear if we have met it, if we're on track, if we didn't meet it, if we're not on track, if we're not moving in the right direction. I think that's really important. I also talked about how long we're spending defining the problem, understanding the problem, understanding the system before we ever got to solutions, before we ever attempted any solutions. This PDSA is not about testing an intervention, it's about gathering information, gathering additional data, which is a fine use of the PDSA. And then the final thing I would say is, the model is then paired with this improvement process. These guiding questions that are tagged to these tools are very helpful, because we have this now written record and people can respond to it.   0:26:53.0 JD: They see it in black and white, and then we can refine it based on the input of the group. And I know that sounds simple, but most of the time we just talk and we don't write stuff down, and we don't have a record, and just makes it harder to see sort of what we said we were gonna do, did we do those things? One thing I didn't mention, in our sort of project and meeting tracker, there's a tab called Journey. And every milestone, every meeting, there's a one-sentence description of what happened, and there's a link to any tool that was created at that meeting. So on one single tab of a spreadsheet, anybody could see the entire process that a particular improvement team went through on their particular project.   0:27:40.3 AS: Excellent. Well, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for your discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to joy in work."

David M. Williams, PhD is an internationally respected scholar-practitioner of the Science of Improvement. With 25 years of experience in improvement, he has worked with leaders and teams worldwide to develop people's abilities to make rigorous, results-driven improvements and adopt quality as an organizational strategy. Dr. Williams coauthored Quality as an Organizational Strategy: Building a System of Improvement. His writing on improvement is also found in many books and published papers. Dr. Williams is a former chief quality officer, consultant, and senior leader at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He is a lead faculty in IHI's Improvement Advisor Professional Development Program and developed and led IHI's Chief Quality Officer program. He created the Mr. Potato Head and Coin Spin PDSA exercises, which are used worldwide to teach PDSA testing and measurement for improvement.Dr. Williams is a former city paramedic and a subject matter expert on ambulance service system design.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact CEOD@bmhcc.org if you have any questions about claiming credit.

As a slightly different approach to this episode, John Redbonds heads to BVNA Congress to hear nurse's thoughts on the current lay of the land, and invites a few special guests to share their thoughts as well.   (00:00) John introduces the podcast and his co host – eLearning.vets head of education, Amelia Sherwood, looking into Veterinary Nursing in Dermatology, with conversations with Veterinary Nurses and industry people. Starting with some conversations from the British Veterinary Nursing Association Congress.   Chapter 1: VN Dermatology at BVNA congress – the challenges and the opportunities.   (02:12) John has a conversation with a couple of nurses working for a small group of practices that are involved in dermatology, without specialising. They reflect on some of the ways they have found to work more on dermatology, along with some of the challenges.   (05:49) John then speaks to two nurses working in a charity based PDSA practice, where they do the majority of dermatology work, and the cases are worked up thoroughly and fully – they reflect on why this is the case and why nurses do this more and how this shows that this is the most sensible and correct model.   (08:26) John speaks to Paris, a nurse who is interested and trained in dermatology – and sees the cases, but is unable to put her skills to use because the practice she is working at doesn't utilise those skills.   (10:25) John speaks to someone working for a company called VN Recruitment – to discuss options which exist for nurses with an interest in dermatology to find a practice where they can use their skills.   Chapter 2: VN Dermatology Nursing in a corporate industry.   (12:45) John then speaks to representatives for the corporate groups to see if there were opportunities are present for nurses in CVS, VetPartners and IVC to progress in dermatology – and specialist centres and training programmes to exist, if a nurse pursues that route.   (17:50) John has a conversation with a nurse who had been heavily involved in dermatology work, but been made redundant by the group she worked for – with no options as a result locally to work as a vet nurse due to competition for places. Demonstrating the challenges that exist in the current landscape.   Chapter 3: VN Dermatology on the move.   (20:55) John spoke to Claire, a nurse who uses a more district nursing model to deliver her nursing skill set – showing there are ways for nurses to diversify within this landscape – and whilst she has some involvement in dermatology in partnership with her local practice, she recognised there could be more opportunity and potential for this.   (27:00) John speaks to Nicola Swales, the dermatology nurse at paragon referrals, who moved 4 hours across country to work as a dermatology nurse having worked at Langford referrals previously. Nicola shares how heavily she is involved in this process, showing just how involved nurses can be.   (34:12) John wraps the podcast by speaking to Amelia Sherwood, a veterinary nurse who has worked in wound management and the advancement in the nurse role in a large group; she shares her thoughts on where the veterinary nurse industry is currently and reflects on the challenges and opportunities there are for nurses.

Britain is supposed to be a nation of animal lovers, especially when it comes to pet dogs. According to the PDSA, 29% of UK adults own a dog, which gives an estimated population of 10.6 million pet dogs. While 29% isn't a majority, the number of pet dogs in the country has increased over the last few years. So it seems only fair to see how this popular animal appears in folklore. After all, I've already covered their eternal nemesis, the cat! In folklore, they sometimes appear as death omens—dogs persistently howling meant death was imminent. And they also appear in mythology, with Cerberus the three-headed dog guarding the Greek Underworld, and Anubis, the jackal-headed god presiding over the weighing of the heart ceremony in ancient Egypt. Let's not forget Sirius, in the Canis Major constellation, literally known as the dog star. They take the form of spectral hounds, loyal companions, witches' familiars, and even give their name to a hangover cure. So let's explore the folklore of dogs in this week's episode of Fabulous Folklore! Find the images and references on the blog post: https://www.icysedgwick.com/dogs-in-folklore/ Get your free guide to home protection the folklore way here: https://www.icysedgwick.com/fab-folklore/ Become a member of the Fabulous Folklore Family for bonus episodes and articles at https://patreon.com/bePatron?u=2380595 Fabulous Folklore Bookshop: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/fabulous_folklore Enjoyed this episode and want to show your appreciation? Buy Icy a coffee to say 'thanks' at: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick Pre-recorded illustrated talks: https://ko-fi.com/icysedgwick/shop Request an episode: https://forms.gle/gqG7xQNLfbMg1mDv7 Get extra snippets of folklore on Instagram at https://instagram.com/icysedgwick Find Icy on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/icysedgwick.bsky.social 'Like' Fabulous Folklore on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fabulousfolklore/

In this episode, Jacob Stoller and Andrew Stotz discuss the myth that managers need to know everything in order to manage. What happens when you ask non-managers for feedback? TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with Jacob Stoller, a Shingo-Prize-winning author of The Lean CEO and also Productivity Reimagined, which explores how to apply the Lean and Deming management style at the enterprise level. The topic for today is Myth Three: The Top-down Knowledge Myth. Jacob, take it away.   0:00:31.2 Jacob Stoller: Okay. Great to be here again, Andrew. And, yeah, the myth we're gonna talk about is this notion that managers can make their workers and their people more productive by telling them exactly what to do. And that's surprisingly prevalent in the workplace. But I wanna start out by just saying how this relates to the other myths that we were talking about, 'cause we started with this, what Dr. Deming calls the "pyramid," the org-structure type or...   0:01:08.9 AS: Organizational chart.   0:01:09.9 JS: Paradigm idea, yeah, the organizational structure that says that everything is a independent component, right? You got your different departments, they all work independently, we optimize each, and we optimize the whole, right? So, from that, it naturally follows. And we did Myth Number Two that we can follow financial logic, 'cause financial logic fits nicely into that structure. And of course, we saw last time that all the shortcomings and problems you get when you follow that kind of thinking. So, the third myth is we get to top-down knowledge. And again, that follows from the pyramid structure. If it were true that interdependent components weren't interdependent, that everything could act independently, it would certainly follow that you could have knowledge about those components taught in school and that it would all make sense. I think it's the interdependence that really shoots that whole thing down of top-down knowledge. So... Sorry. Yeah.   0:02:16.3 AS: Go ahead.   0:02:18.8 JS: I wanted to start with a bit of a story just to illustrate how prevalent this is. I was doing a workshop with a small excavation company, and we were looking at ways to make them more effective and serve more customers, grow more effectively, and stuff like that. I did an exercise with them, and we looked at where maybe the waste was taking place the most. And they were driving trucks around a lot. This was a rural area, so there was a lot of mileage that was perhaps being wasted. So, we did an exercise with tracking value and non-value mileage. If you're going to a customer, that's adding value. But if you take a detour to have lunch or something, well, that doesn't add value to the customer, right?   0:03:08.8 JS: So, we were exploring those things, and that exercise worked out really well. They made some big changes, and it actually really helped the company grow. They started posting little notes in the trucks talking about, "Remember, value versus non-value." They were tracking it. And it was really interesting. But the success was largely due to one participant. And I'm sure you've seen this, Andrew, in workshops where somebody really seems to get it. And he had all these ideas, a very, very thoughtful guy, and we were just writing down his suggestions. He had a lot to do with that. But after the workshop, I sat down with him when we were chatting, and he told me that he'd been in the construction business for 15 years, and nobody had ever asked him for his opinion about how work was done. Never.   0:04:04.7 AS: Incredible.   0:04:07.1 JS: I was just stunned by that. This guy was so good. [laughter] When you think about that, it's pretty typical. And I think it's really, people are, managers are taught that it's their job to tell people what to do. And often that puts them in a tough spot. Often they have to be in a role where maybe that they're not that comfortable, because maybe they know deep down inside that there's a lot of knowledge out there that they're not aware of.   0:04:41.3 AS: Yeah, it's interesting. It reminds me when I was a first time supervisor at Pepsi, and I worked in the Torrance factory in Los Angeles, in Torrance, California, and then I worked in the Buena Park factory. And at Buena Park, I was given control of the warehouse. In both cases, I was a warehouse supervisor.   0:05:02.9 JS: Right.   0:05:03.1 AS: And I remember I worked with the union workers who were all moving the product all day long. And I just constantly focused on improvement and that type of thing, and talking to them, and trying to figure out how can we do this better, faster, cheaper and with less injury and all of that. And when I left, it was two years, it was maybe a year and a half that I was at that facility. And one of the guys that had been there, he said... He came up to me, he said, "25 years I've been here, and nobody really listened to us the way you did."   0:05:41.0 JS: Oh, wow. Well, that's a hint.   0:05:41.8 AS: And it just made me realize, "How can it be?" Now, I know Pepsi was taking first-time graduates out of school and putting them in this job, and... I don't know. But I just was... I was baffled by that. So, at first blush you would think you'd never hear that. People are always talking, but people aren't always talking. That's not that common.   0:06:03.1 JS: Yeah, for sure. And it's so really deeply entrenched in the system that it's very, very hard to break. One of them, I talked to a couple of companies that actually went through transformations, and this was with Lean, where they transformed their managers as a lot of Lean companies do. And I know Deming companies do this as well, where they changed their role from being someone that tells people what to do, to somebody who actually is a coach and an enabler, and draws people out and uses their knowledge and encourages them to solve their own problems, whether it's PDSA or whatever methods they support. And both of these companies lost half their management team through that transition. But both of the leaders admitted, they were honest enough to admit, that the reason why they lost the managed, they blamed themselves. They said, "It's 'cause we as the top leaders didn't prepare those people for the change." So, that was interesting as well.   0:07:17.6 AS: I want to go back and just revisit... Myth Number One was the myth of segmented success. The idea that, "Hey, we can get the most out of this if we segment everybody and have everybody do the best they can in each of those areas." Dr. Deming often said that we're destroyed by best efforts. And part of that's one of the things he was saying was that it doesn't work. Segmented success doesn't maximize or optimize the output for a system. The second one was the myth of the bottom line, and that was the idea that just measuring financial numbers doesn't tell you about productivity, and just measuring financial numbers doesn't give you success. And then the third one was, that we're talking about now, is the Myth Number Three, is top-down knowledge myth. And so, I'm curious. Tell us a little bit more about what you mean by "top-down knowledge myth."   0:08:17.7 JS: Essentially it's knowledge from outside the workplace being... How do I wanna say it?   0:08:26.0 AS: Pushed down. [laughter]   0:08:28.0 JS: Pushed down, imported, or imported into the workplace, imposed into the workplace. It's really that idea that something from outside can be valid. And it certainly can, to a degree. You can have instructions on how to operate a machine. You can have all kinds of instructions that are determined from outside, but there's a limit to that kind of knowledge. And when you really wanna improve quality, it really does take a lot more input. But I think there are many... This is one of the myths I think that there are very many different sides to. And one of the sides is that what I call the... It's related to variation, but it's really what I call the "granularity problem." And it's the fact that problems are not these nice, big omnibus types of items that a manager can solve. They tend to be hundreds of problems, or thousands.   0:09:37.0 JS: And so, when you've seen transformations, for example, in hospitals, I think that's an environment we can all understand, again, it's because of many, many different improvements that they become better. One example that I was given is, let's suppose you have a medication error problem. That's really, really common in hospitals now, right? But medication error is, it's not one thing. It could be because of the label, labeling on the bottles. It could be the lighting when people are reading the medications. It could be the way they're arranged on trays. It could be the way they're stored. It could be in the supply chains. The really successful healthcare transformations have been by getting thousands of improvements. And I mean literally thousands of improvements from employees who live with those processes every day. Managers can never [chuckle] know all these hundreds and thousands of things, especially, they can't be everywhere. So, really, the answer is that you do need an army of problem solvers to really get the kind of excellence that we want.   0:10:56.0 AS: Dr. Deming had a quote that he said which was, "A system cannot understand itself." And he's talking about, you got to understand... Sometimes it takes someone from outside looking at the system. And that's different from what you're talking about, which is the idea of someone at the top of the organization saying, "I know how to do this, here's what you guys got to do, and here's how you solve it," without really working with the workers and helping understand what's really going on. And I think what you're saying in this too is the idea that people who are empowered at the work level to try to figure out what's the best way to organize this with some support from above, that's management in that sense is a supporting function to give them ideas. If there's a person that understands quality or Lean, or they understand Deming's teachings, then that outside person can also give that team resources and ideas that they may not typically have. But the idea that a senior executive could be sitting up at the top of the company and then being able to look down and say, "Here's how to do each of these areas," is just impractical.   0:12:12.3 JS: Oh, yeah. And I think Dr. Deming was... He was giving managers, I think, a very challenging task to understand systems and to know, 'cause you're responsible for the system if you're management. So, you really have to know when you have to be constantly getting feedback from people who are working in the system and trying to improve their work within the system. So, yeah, it's got to be a definite give and take. And in Lean, they call that "catchball," where there's a constant back and forth between the managers and the workers in terms of the problems they're having and what needs to be done to help them. So, yeah, it's very tuned in to each other.   0:12:55.0 AS: Yeah, and I would say, from my experience in most companies, management's not really trying to help them. Each unit's fending for itself and trying to figure it out, and they're not really getting that much support from management. And so, the idea being that with the proper support and encouragement to learn and improve, the teams that we have in our businesses can achieve amazing things. And this goes back to also to the concept of intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic. And I think what Dr. Deming, what was appealing to me about Dr. Deming when I first started learning about it, was he was talking about "unleash the intrinsic motivation of people, and you will unleash something that is just amazing." And the desire to improve is going to be far better than... And that's why sometimes he would just say, "Throw out your appraisal system," or "Throw out these things, get rid of them," because what you'll find is you're gonna unleash the passions and desires and the intrinsic motivations. And so, that's another thing I'm thinking about when I'm hearing Myth Three: The Top-down Knowledge Myth. It just, it doesn't unleash that intrinsic motivation.   0:14:16.8 JS: Well, it's interesting, this thing was really studied by the Shingo Institute, where they, they, about, as I think you may know, they give out something called the "Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing." They also give prizes for books too, which I was fortunate to receive. But they had for years been giving the Shingo Prize to excellent manufacturers leading up to 2007 or so. But they found out that most of the people that had got the Shingo Prize had essentially fallen off the ladder. So, they did a very detailed study, interviewed all kinds of organizations: Ones that had fallen off the ladders, so to speak, and ones that had actually maintained the kind of excellence that they had won their prize for.   0:15:20.5 JS: And they found that the ones that had fallen off the ladder had a top-down engineered approach, whereas the ones that had been successful were much more respectful of their people and getting a lot more feedback from the people, the sort of the respect-for-people-type idea that Toyota has. So, really, what they were saying is that the top-down approach, you might be able to fix up your factory and get really good ratings for a while and you have great processes, but in the long run it's not sustainable. So, they changed their criteria so that now, to get a Shingo Prize in manufacturing, you really have to show culture; you have to show how you're listening to your people, the whole thing. So, it's very different now.   0:16:12.0 AS: Yeah. And it's interesting, we have a company in Thailand that the company and its subsidiaries won the Japanese Deming Prize. And there was 11 companies total in this group that won the prize at different years as they implemented throughout the whole organization. And then a couple years later, the CEO resigned. He retired; he reached the end of his time. And the new CEO came in. He wasn't so turned on by the teachings of Dr. Deming, and he saw a new way of doing things. And so, he basically dumped all that.   0:16:57.0 JS: Oh, really?   0:16:57.8 AS: And it's tragic. It's a tragic story. And the lesson that I learned from that is, one of the strengths of a family business is the ability to try to build that constitution or that commitment to "What do we stand for?" Whereas in a publicly listed business where you're getting turnover of CEOs every four, six years, or whatever, in just the case of Starbucks recently, we just saw turnover happen very, very quickly. And the new CEO could go a completely different direction. And so, when I talk to people about Deming's teachings, I say that family businesses have a competitive advantage in implementing it. And I think Toyota is the ultimate family business in Asia, right?   0:17:50.9 JS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, pride in the family name, and that's... Yeah, and a lot of the interviews I did were businesses like that, where there was a desire to do more than make money, to have a purpose, sustain the family name and that kind of thing. So, yeah, for sure.   0:18:10.0 AS: So, let's wrap this up with you giving us a final recap of what we need to be thinking about when it comes to the Myth Number Three: The Top-down Knowledge Myth.   0:18:24.0 JS: Okay. Well, I think essentially people need to understand that there are limits to what a manager can actually know. And I think the healthcare example, this illustrates that very well. I think they also need to understand that what you ultimately want if you wanna maximize productivity is team productivity. It's the productivity of the group. And people are motivated. You were talking about intrinsic motivation. Part of that comes from actually working together as a team. So, you need to create the kind of trust where information flows freely, and where somebody doesn't hoard their own knowledge but is willing to share it with others, because they don't feel they're in competition with each other. So, again, that's related to driving out fear. So, everything's really interrelated. But I think we have to accept knowledge as something part of a shared collaborative work environment, where everybody wins if knowledge flows freely. And people have to be willing to admit that what they've learned in the past, what they've learned in school has limits in how it can be applicable. And those limits have to be respected. And you have to be willing to listen to every employee, not just the ones that have degrees.   0:20:00.8 AS: All right. Well, that's a great recap. And, Jacob, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And you can find Jacob's book, Productivity Reimagined at jacobstoller.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming: "People are entitled to joy in work."

In this episode of EMS One-Stop, host Rob Lawrence is joined by quality improvement expert, Dr. Dave Williams, recent co-author of the book, “Quality as an Organizational Strategy,” and Dr. Jonathan Studnek, executive director of Wake County EMS. Together they discuss the five activities for organization's leaders to provide the structure to begin working on making quality their strategy. These activities are centered on: Purpose Viewing the organization as a system Obtaining information Planning to improve Managing improvement efforts These five activities form a system for the leaders of an organization to focus their learning, planning and actions. Memorable quotes "Leadership's job is to build systems where staff can be rock stars and bring their best selves every day." — Dr. Dave Williams "Understanding your purpose as an EMS agency, like being responsible for cardiac arrest survival, is essential in improving performance." — Dr. Jon Studnek "Our secret weapon in improvement is the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, where we learn fast by making low-risk, small-scale changes." — Dr. Dave Williams "These five activities are the key elements that leaders should be engaging with to drive their organizations forward." — Dr. Jon Studnek Highlights 01:14 – Dr. Dave Williams shares his background in quality improvement and EMS 02:12 – Dr. Jon Studnek introduces himself and talks about his journey in EMS leadership 03:56 – Dr. Williams discusses his book, “Quality as an Organizational Strategy” and its origins, and outlines the five core activities of quality as an organizational strategy 15:02 – Dr. Studnek describes implementing the quality framework in EMS, using cardiac arrest survival as a real-world example 23:36 – Rob and Dr. Studnek discuss interconnectedness in EMS systems and fleet maintenance 30:00 – Dr. Williams explains how small-scale changes using the PDSA cycle help improve EMS operations 35:00 – Final thoughts from Dr. Studnek on leadership and quality as a guide for day-to-day work

Do you ever wonder how some organisations adapt to change so effortlessly?PMI Director Consultant Sean Buckland describes how Agile methodologies, rooted in the Agile Manifesto, combine with Lean principles to drive sustainable, customer-focused improvements. Tune in to hear why Agile Improvement isn't a trend, but a powerful approach that can help organisations just like yours implement solutions quickly and effectively, using PDSA to refine and sustain progress, and thrive in dynamic environments.More resources on this topic:On Demand Webinar: Agile Improvement - Myth or Magic?Podcast: The Power of RetrospectivesOn Demand Webinar: PDSA Your Work, Your Project, Your ProgrammeJoin PMI's Rich Seddon and special guest Sohrab Salimi, founder of Agile Academy, for a discussion of the key factors that will make your Agile programme a success, covering:The essential foundations and benefits of AgilityWhere to startHow to engage stakeholders

John Boyko, a Director at the Kaizen Promotion Office (KPO) at Washington Hospital Health System in Fremont, California describes how their KPO Team practiced what they preached in reviewing, studying, and adjusting their internal Management System training program.

Welcome to our series of bite-sized episodes featuring favourite moments from the Leading for Business Excellence podcast series.Join us as Ali Bolton of the Wye Valley NHS Trust underscores the value of small-scale testing and introduces the empowering concept of "fabulous failure" as a pivotal learning opportunity. Listen to the full episode here: https://pmi.co.uk/knowledge-hub/podcast-a-leadership-journey-fuelled-by-curiosity/ Goals to Results ConferenceJoin us for a day of expert speakers, interactive workshops, case studies and networking opportunities. Turn your goals into tangible results with the help of industry experts and thought leaders. On 25.09.24, we'll take over The Slate at The University of Warwick, a state-of-the-art venue perfect for fostering creativity, conversation and collaboration. Secure your place at pmi.co.uk/g2r.More from PMI: Dive into our Knowledge Hub for more tools, videos, and infographics Join us for a PMI LIVE Webinar Follow us on LinkedIn

Today's topic is something every practice owner and administrator should be familiar with: Continuous Quality Improvement, or CQI, and the "alphabet soup" of improvement methodologies that come with it, like PDSA, Six Sigma, Lean, and FMEA. You might be thinking—great, more buzzwords. But the truth is, these concepts have the potential to make a huge impact on the way your practice operates. Whether you're trying to improve patient outcomes, streamline your operations, or reduce costs, CQI offers a structured, data-driven way to get there. And as physicians and healthcare leaders, you're already equipped with the skills to succeed using these methods. Please Follow or Subscribe to get new episodes delivered to you as soon as they drop! Visit Jill's company, Health e Practices' website: https://healtheps.com/ Subscribe to our newsletter, Health e Connections: http://21978609.hs-sites.com/newletter-subscriber Want more content? Find sample job descriptions, financial tools, templates and much more: www.MedicalMoneyMattersPodcast.com  Purchase your copy of Jill's book here: Physician Heal Thy Financial Self Join our Medical Money Matters Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3834886643404507/ Original Musical Score by: Craig Addy at https://www.underthepiano.ca/ Visit Craig's website to book your Once in a Lifetime music experience Podcast coaching and development by: Jennifer Furlong, CEO, Communication Twenty-Four Seven https://www.communicationtwentyfourseven.com/

In this new series, John Dues and Andrew Stotz discuss John's model for improvement. This episode includes an overview of the model and how John uses it for goal-setting and planning in his school. 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is building an improvement model. John, take it away.   0:00:24.8 John Dues: It's good to be back, Andrew. Yeah, so we sort of wrapped up this last series. We had a six-part series on organizational goal setting. And we, if you remember, we talked through those four conditions that are important for organizational goal setting, especially healthy goal setting, where before we set a goal, we understand sort of how capable our system is. We understand how our data is varying within our system. We are looking at our system and seeing if it's stable or unstable. And then, of course, we want to have a method for how we go about improving. And so you kind of have to have an understanding of those four conditions before you set a goal.   0:01:03.6 JD: And I thought sort of as an extension of that, or possibly a new series, we could kind of take a look at an improvement model that would help us sort of better set ambitious goals. Because when we did those four conditions, it kind of leaves you wondering, well, how ambitious should my goals be? Should I still do stretch goals, those types of things? And I think this improvement model that we're building here at United Schools sort of addresses that. And it's something we're building.   0:01:34.4 JD: And so I think the listeners kind of get like a little bit of behind the scenes on what it looks like now. I think we'll see a version of it. And perhaps through this dialogue, through the series, we'll even think about ways to improve it.   0:01:48.4 AS: Can I ask you a question about that?   0:01:49.6 JD: Sure.   0:01:50.0 AS: One of the things, I do a lot of lectures on corporate strategy and workshops, and the lingo gets so confusing, vision, mission, values, and all kinds of different ways that people refer to things. But when I talk to my clients and my students, I oftentimes just tell them a vision is a long-term goal. And it could be a five-year or a 10-year goal. And because it's long-term, it's a little bit more of a vision as opposed to, you can see it very clearly. Like my goal is to get an A in this particular class, this particular semester. Whereas what I try to say is, a vision is: I want to be in the top of that mountain. And I want us all to be at the top of that mountain in five years. And I kind of interchangeably call that a long-term goal and a vision. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are on long-term versus short and medium as we go into this discussion.   0:02:53.8 JD: Yeah. I think as we get into the model, we'll actually see both of those things, sort of a long-term sort of goal, sort of a more intermediate thing, and then how you work back and forth between those two things. So I think that's a good segue.   0:03:08.4 AS: Let's get in it.   0:03:08.4 JD: Yeah. And so just maybe just a few other things about the model before we get right into it. So one thing to know I've come to appreciate is when when I say a model, I just mean something visually representative that helps us understand and communicate how we think things should be functioning in reality. So when I say improvement model, I'm actually like talking about a diagram on a piece of paper that you can put in front of everybody on your team. So everybody has an understanding for how you're approaching goal setting in this case.   0:03:38.1 AS: Would you call it an improvement visualization? Or what's the difference between what you mean by model and like something that I would call, let's say, a visualization?   0:03:49.5 JD: Yeah, I'd say it's a type of visualization when I say model.   0:03:52.8 AS: Okay. Excellent.   0:03:53.8 JD: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And I think you'll see it when we get into the model that definitely there's credit due to Mike Rother and his concept of Improvement Kata because this model heavily borrows from the work that he's done, if you're familiar with that four-step Improvement Kata process.   0:04:15.1 AS: Yeah. Very.   0:04:19.7 JD: But anytime, whatever the thing is that you call like key performance metrics, key metrics, whatever you call that thing that we all set in our organizations, there's always this gap between what we want and what we're currently getting. And this model gives us the scientific way of thinking and working to close basically that gap. In this world, the gap between the voice of the process and the voice of the customer, how do we close that gap? So that's sort of what the model is addressing. So I'll share my screen so you can see that and anybody that's watching can see what the model looks like. And I'll just kind of leave that up as I'm talking about it, put it in slideshow.   0:05:08.7 AS: Great. We can see that now.   0:05:14.6 JD: Great. So we can just start by just kind of giving an overview, especially for those people who are listening, but you can kind of picture like a path going up a mountain and that path has twists and turns. It has obstacles. In this particular diagram or model, there's rocks in the way of the path. There's a water hazard, there's trees in the way, there's a roadblock. And as you go, it's kind of strange because you're working your way up. And I'll explain this all as we go through it kind of one step at a time. But as you're working from left to right in the model, this four-step improvement model, you have a team over on the left. This team's working on a goal that you're setting. And then over on the left, you actually have step two, which is grasp the current condition. And then you have this big crack in the path that's called the threshold of knowledge. And I'll talk about what that is.   0:06:11.1 JD: And sort of the next step is actually step four, experiment to overcome obstacles as you're working left to right. You go further up this path, up this mountain. And number three, the step three is establish your next target condition. And then when you get all the way up the mountain and you have this challenge or direction. So that's what you were just talking about. So what's that long-term thing that you're trying to accomplish? We call that a challenge or direction. So the steps that you're taking actually chronologically are you're going to do number one first.   0:06:43.2 JD: You're going to set that challenge or direction, but it actually is the thing that you're working toward. That's the sort of beginning with the end in mind. So that's why it's way up on the mountain, but you're going to do that first. And the next thing you're going to do is go all the way back down to the start of the path and grasp whatever that current condition is in your organization. And then you're going to run experiments on the way to trying to get to the next sort of intermediate step, that next target condition. So four steps, and then you have this team working on it.   0:07:16.8 AS: Which I would say for the traditional American style, as from my perspective, it can be a bit confusing because you're starting with number one at the farthest point away instead of closest to you. Then you're going to come to number two. From a timeline perspective, it feels like you're kind of zigzagging back and forth in your thinking.   0:07:38.8 JD: Yep. You definitely are. And it takes a little bit to wrap your head around it, but we'll kind of work through this piece by piece. So let's start with the team. So you have these people on the left-hand side of this diagram. There's sort of three different groups within that team. And we've talked about this a number of times, but remember that there's this key concept when you're going to take a thinking systems or a systems view of an organization. That you have to have these three different groups of people. You have to have the people that are working on the system, the people that are working in the system, and then from Dr. Deming's perspective, you have to have somebody that has profound knowledge, has that lens. So again, someone from the outside that has profound knowledge. And then in our case, the people working in the system, generally speaking, are the students. And then you have to have the managers that have the authority to work on the system. So in our system, that would be teachers and school leaders. But this model is not specific to educational organizations. You could translate this to any other type of organization.   0:08:50.4 JD: So if we were a hospital, then perhaps the people working in the system, depending on the improvement project, could be nurses. And then the managers that have the authority to work on the system, maybe the hospital management team. And then someone from outside with profound knowledge could be either someone internally that has familiarity with the System of Profound Knowledge or someone that they bring in externally, like a consultant to help out. So the point is, is that, again, this team, whoever's working in the system is going to differ by the organizational sector that you're working in. But it translates in the system basically.   0:09:31.0 AS: It's interesting that I've seen this type of diagram or concept about work on the system, work in the system and a System of Profound Knowledge coach. But it just kind of clicked for me to think about it. It obviously, like when I work with a company, I'm working with the owners and the top management. And when I do that, we're working on the system.   0:09:58.5 JD: Yep.   0:10:00.2 AS: And I have the knowledge of the System of Profound Lnowledge. So I'm coaching them about the system. And then within the system, they have the employees who are executing on what they're trying to improve and do, but it just perfectly explains it. So I love that diagram.   0:10:17.8 JD: Yeah. And I have the same experience. And I think we've mentioned on this podcast before that in my world, we often have school or district-based improvement teams. And it's typically leaders of the organization, sometimes teachers, but almost never is it students working in the system that are a part of, or, providing significant input into the improvement. So, I think if you can combine, in our case, students working in the system, because they have things that they can identify in terms of how they experience the system that are different than the people that work on the system. And then having that third group that, or that person that has that outside profound knowledge, if you put all the three of those things together, I think you have a much better chance to improve. But I think in schools, that's probably never happening. I'm assuming that's the same in other industries as well.   0:11:08.3 AS: And this also explains why when Dr. Deming would see slogans and things like that, encouraging the workers to do better and higher quality, he was like, they don't have the authority to change the system.   0:11:22.5 JD: Right.   0:11:24.1 AS: And what you've said is the group that's working on the system has the authority or the ability to change the system.   0:11:35.4 JD: Yeah. This is one...the makeup of this team that's using this four-step process, that's one innovation that we've done to this model that would be different from the Improvement Kata. So in the Improvement Kata, there's just coach and learner. Usually sometimes there's a coach of the coach, a coach and a learner, depending on how it's represented, but this is in my view, an innovation where you have the work on the system group, the work in the system group, and then the System of Profound Knowledge coach. I haven't seen that in this model.   0:12:07.4 AS: And could that be because when Mike Rother was writing his book, he was particularly referring to Toyota.   0:12:18.7 JD: Could be. Could be.   0:12:19.5 AS: Where the workers have more authority to impact the system. Whereas in the typical American system, the worker doesn't really have the authority to stop the production line or something like that to the extent of the Japanese. So interesting point.   0:12:36.1 JD: Yeah, that's a really good point. My understanding of Mike Rother's work is he sort of derived this improvement model by watching, observing, working with Toyota over a very long period of time. So that very well could be the case. Cool. So we have the team, so let's go to step one, that's the challenge or direction. And I really like that because again, when we did that six part series on Goal Setting is Often an Act of Desperation, one thing that I did think was missing was like, well, still as an organization, we want to move forward. We want to improve. We want to be ambitious in how we're setting our goals, but I don't think that fully came through in the four conditions. And so I think layering this model on top of the four conditions really helps because I think it is important to be ambitious, especially when we're talking about like a mission driven organization, we need to be setting ambitious targets for student learning, coming to school, those types of things.   0:13:39.6 JD: So really what we're doing in step one of the model is we're asking the question, where do we want to be in the long run? So this is a long term goal. This is a longer range goal that would differentiate us from other schools if we achieved it. But currently when we think about this goal, it actually seems nearly impossible because it's so far from where we are currently performing. We don't know how we're going to get there. So an example in my world is, schools have been paying much closer attention to chronic absenteeism, which is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year. And those numbers basically skyrocketed towards the end of the pandemic and then for the last several years. So that's something we're focusing on as an organization. So our chronic absenteeism rate is really high, like 52%, something like that over the last several years. And we want to get that down to 5%. So there's this huge gap.   0:14:53.6 AS: That's a huge move.   0:14:54.5 JD: Huge gap, order of magnitude, right? To go from 52%, that's the voice of the process. That's what's actually happening. And the voice of the customer, what we want is 5%. And we really don't know how to get there. And that's going to be the case at the point where you're at step one, but you're doing that first. You're setting that challenge or direction. And that really is something that needs to be set, in my view, at the leadership level, at the management level. So, that's step one.   0:15:22.9 AS: And you just said something that's interesting is we really don't know how to get there.   0:15:25.6 JD: And we really don't know...   0:15:26.9 AS: I mean, if we knew how to get there, we'd probably be there.   0:15:28.6 JD: Yeah. Yep. Yep. So that's step one. That's why if you're able to view the model and you're watching the podcast and you can see the video, that's why number one happens first, even though it's on the far right hand in the upper right hand corner at the top of the mountain in the model.   0:15:45.8 AS: And is there a reason why it's a relatively vague thing, right? Challenge or direction.   0:15:54.0 JD: Yeah.   0:15:55.5 AS: Why is it vague as opposed to specific target, goal or saying something like that?   0:16:03.7 JD: Yeah. I mean, I think, I like challenge or direction. One, it fits on the page. And it sort of conveys that it's going to be a challenge. And it also, if you're going to work in this way to achieve something like that, that it's actually setting the direction of the organization, the direction that the organization is moving toward. So.   0:16:24.0 AS: In other words, is it acknowledging that we really won't, we really don't know that target. We think we know it, we see that mountain, but as we go closer to it, we want to go in that direction, but as we get closer, it'll become more clear exactly where we're going to be or want to be.   0:16:44.7 JD: Well, I think this would be something that... I think in my view, we're still learning. But when we set that challenge or direction, I guess I could see some circumstances where we would come off that, but I think we kind of want to set it in a way that really pushes us. Right. So I'd be, I mean, I think you could learn some things that would say, okay, maybe that wasn't the exact right number to set, but I'd also be careful about just adjusting it because it's hard.   0:17:13.2 AS: Okay. So you mentioned 5%.   0:17:17.9 JD: Yeah.   0:17:19.1 AS: Would that be, would you state it as achieve 5%?   0:17:25.9 JD: Yeah. 5% or less of our students are chronically absent.   0:17:30.4 AS: Okay. Keep going. I don't want to slow it down. But listeners may get it faster than I do. I'm a little bit slow and I have a lot of questions as we go along.   0:17:37.0 JD: No, no. And I think what we could do in future episodes is dig into each of the steps a little bit more too, and use this as an overview session.   0:17:46.9 AS: Yep.   0:17:48.3 JD: So that was step one. So now what's going to happen in step two, you're going to come all the way back down. Now you're at the very start of the path.   0:17:56.6 AS: Back to reality.   0:18:00.6 JD: Back to reality, step two. And the first thing you have to do, okay, we've set the target, this very challenging direction we want to head into because it's the right thing to do. The next thing we're going to do is grasp the current condition. And so in step two of the model, we're going to ask, where are we now? So we know the long-term goal and now we need to study the current process and how it operates basically. So basically this study represents our current knowledge threshold about the process. And then it's going to contribute to how we define the next target condition we've set that sort of intermediate step on the way to the challenge. And so a lot of that six-part series on goal setting is often an act of desperation, a lot of that learning is right here at what we're doing at step two, because we're creating a process behavior chart in a lot of cases, and understanding how our data is performing over time in this particular area. That's what grasping the current condition means.   0:19:02.6 JD: So part of it, it's a data thing. So in this chronic absenteeism example, what I'm gonna do is I know where I want to be. Now I need to understand where are we historically. And then also as a part of grasping the current condition, I may wanna do some things like interview students and families that are chronically absent, then sort of dig into why that is. Interview teachers about why they think that is. There's a number of things that you could do at this step on the ground where the work happens to grasp the current condition. And I think there can be a sort of quantitative component to that and a qualitative component to that. Also, we sort of understand like how are things actually working on the ground that contribute to us not being where we want to in this particular area.   0:19:56.7 JD: So that's step two. That's what we're gonna do next. After we've set the challenge or direction, we wanna sort of understand the situation on the ground, grasp the current condition. And then next what we're gonna do is step three, which is establish your next target condition. So in step three of the model, we ask where do we want to be next? So we know we can't make this leap, from 52% to, 'cause we wanna decrease it down to 5%. We know we're not, that's too big a step that we're just gonna get there somehow magically. So our target condition, then it's our next goal, usually within a time bound, achieve by date. In Mike Rother's work, he suggests something on a pretty short term scale. Something like one week or one month. So something like chronic absenteeism, I think one month would be sort of where I would set the next target condition. Just having experience with something like attendance rates.   0:21:07.0 JD: And at this point we don't exactly know how we'll achieve the next target condition, but it also, it doesn't feel as impossible as the challenge. So it's a step towards the challenge. So we're gonna do that next. So we set the big challenge that may take us three years to get to. Then we understand the current conditions on the ground and we use that knowledge to set our next target condition. So that's step three. And then the fourth step is we're gonna experiment to overcome obstacles.   0:21:45.9 AS: And before you go to fourth, let me just ask a question about establish your next target condition. One of the things that's missing from that, obviously is, you know, coming from a different perspective, is that when we say, all right, here's where we want to be, and let's go back to reality, and here's where we are. Sometimes, when people work like myself and others, work with people who say, okay, let's map out all the steps to get to that vision. What are the next five things we have to do? Whereas here you're saying, let's focus on the next target condition rather than the next five.   0:22:25.4 JD: Yep. And keep in mind when I say establish the next target condition, what I literally mean is what's our next intermediate goal that we're gonna shoot for? So if we're trying to get all the way down to 5% from 52, remember decrease is good in this case, establish my next target condition, maybe over the next month, I wanna see if I can get that from 52% down to 35% or down to 40%. Part of what I would look at when I set that next target condition is what did the variation look like when I was charting in step two? So the magnitude of that variation will give me some indication of what would be a reasonable sort of next step target for step three basically.   0:23:11.9 AS: And maybe just explain for those people not familiar with Mike Rother's work and, you know, terminology that you're using, why do you say establish your next target condition?   0:23:28.0 JD: I think, I don't know. I think that, you know, really what I mean is just establish the next target, establish the next intermediate goal, basically. Now, I think using the word condition is because when you think about something like chronic absenteeism, there's conditions that probably contribute to that and part of that condition may be the things that you wanna work on. So I kind of think of like, you know, 'cause when you look at step four, you're gonna experiment. So you're creating a new set of realities, a new set of conditions in your organization. And so sort of that coincides with the metric that you're shooting for. So it's not just the metrics, it's also like what are the conditions surrounding that metric. If that makes sense.   0:24:15.8 AS: Yep.   0:24:16.9 JD: Cool. And then step four then is experiment to overcome obstacles. So basically in step four of the model, we move toward the target condition with experiments. And by experiments, what I'm talking about is Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles or PDSA cycles, which uncover obstacles we'll need to work on. So the path, and that's the path in the model is windy 'cause it's this path to the target condition is not gonna be straight line, but it's gonna require this rapid learning to move in that direction basically. And so let's say we've set that next target condition to be one month from now, that's what we're shooting for. And we're gonna run a series of experiments. Maybe it's four one-week PSDA cycles, maybe it's two, two week PSDA cycles. Maybe it's one one month cycle. It depends on sort of the nature of the Plan, Do Study, Act cycle. But running these cycles where we make a plan, including a prediction, run the experiment, and then study what happens and see if it's moving us in the direction of the target condition.   0:25:40.0 JD: And so in that way, we're rapidly learning what it's gonna take to hit that next target condition. And the other important part of this, you'll see in between the grasping of the current condition at step two and running those experiments, there's this huge fault line, this huge crack in the path that you can't just jump over. And it's kinda labeled there, it says Threshold of Knowledge. And basically it's the point at which you have no facts and data to go on. That's the threshold of knowledge. There's always a threshold of knowledge. And so to see further beyond that threshold of knowledge, that's where you conduct your next experiment.   0:26:28.7 AS: Interesting.   0:26:29.8 JD: So because you, like you were saying, we wanna outline these five steps that we're gonna do. So with chronic absenteeism, I read somewhere a Harvard study where if you text parents what a kid's attendance rate is on a regular basis, they're then more likely to come to school on a frequent basis. So you could see where a school system would spend all this money to get a texting system, maybe even allocate a person or a half of a FTE of a person to run this system. And they faithfully implement this texting system, and it has no impact at their school to impact those chronic, because it had nothing to do with what the actual problem was in that context. And you've spent all this money. And that was just a hypothetical.   0:27:21.2 AS: And you could have done a pilot test of 10 parents or 20 and done it manually and sent out some messages and just tested a little bit.   0:27:31.1 JD: Yeah. You run a test with 10 chronically absent kids. Just to see if you can improve their attendance for a week. And maybe you learn something or for a month and maybe you learn something. And then if the early evidence is pointing in the right direction, then you can run that experiment with more kids or for a longer period of time or under slightly different conditions. Those types of things.   0:27:54.6 AS: So an example that I would say in relation to this for one of my clients is that we've identified that they need to get a higher gross profit margin.   0:28:04.7 JD: Okay.   0:28:05.5 JD: And their gross profit margin is about 23%. And I know that the average is about 30 in the industry. And so my work with them is how are we gonna get that profit margin to be 30 or 35%? 35 would be showing that you've really got pricing power because of something that we've done. And so, I'm pounding away that we've gotta improve this, but you know what? We don't have data to understand the current condition. And this week we've... It's taken us about a couple months to pull that data together. But now we have absolutely comprehensive data that my team has calculated on the profitability of every product, the profitability of every customer, and the profitability of every process. We know the capacity utilization of each part of the production process. So now we have the knowledge that we didn't have before that's gonna, that once get, digest this knowledge, it's gonna give us the indication of what to do next. Which is it's gonna be shut down a particular production process or increase price there. We may lose customers, but it's not worth doing it at this low price or so, but without that knowledge, we're just, it's a dream.   0:29:21.4 JD: Yeah. It sounds like you guys have done step one and step two in that process.   0:29:28.0 AS: Yeah. Which is exciting. 'Cause now Friday's meeting is gonna be about, all right, how do we take this huge amount of data and effort that we've put in and now it's time to come up with what are the steps that we're gonna take?   0:29:40.4 JD: Yeah. And I think even just in that situation, even just acknowledging that there's the threshold of knowledge. Even just getting people to acknowledge that in a room that they actually don't know what's gonna happen. That's the power of the PDSA because it makes you predict, okay, you say this thing is gonna work and when you put in this plan in place, this is your prediction. And then when you come back next week and it doesn't work, then you have to explain that, you know, it's not a gotcha, but it very quickly makes you think in a different way.   0:30:13.0 AS: It keeps a record so someone has gone back, well, I didn't think it was gonna work, you know, for sure.   0:30:18.8 JD: Well, right. And it's usually very like, some of the things that I found in that is when people are off on their predictions, it's very mundane things that they didn't account for. We're in student recruitment season and we set a goal for the number of calls we're gonna make to prospective families. And then hypothetically a recruitment director could fall short and it's like, well what happened? It's like, well, oh, the two part-time people that we had, I forgot they are actually out two days last week right? And so it's usually things like that are actually getting in the way of us accomplishing these grand targets that we have set.   0:31:05.5 AS: By the way, where does the threshold of knowledge fit? We've got number one challenge or direction, number two, grasp the current condition. It's after the grasp the current condition that we come to the threshold of knowledge.   0:31:17.7 JD: Yeah. Because, well, we have somewhat of an understanding of the condition on the ground, but we don't know what's gonna improve it until we run the experiments. So we start running the experiments and we try to sort of narrow that knowledge gap basically. And this is sort of the final part is basically like what do you do when you get to that experiment and when you hit that target condition, when you reach that by the achieve-by date, well now there's a new condition and you repeat the four steps because you haven't reached the challenge or the direction. You just met that sort of intermediate goal. And you basically keep running this four step cycle until that learned long-term challenge is achieved.   0:32:12.5 AS: Okay. Great. So we've got the establish your next condition down where it could be one week, it could be one month, in some cases it could be longer, but it's really our next intermediate goal. Where do we wanna go next? What's the next right step?   0:32:28.5 JD: Yeah. Well, so you go back to step two 'cause you're not gonna change the challenge or direction. Now there's a new set of conditions 'cause you've moved ahead, right? And now you're gonna go back and say, okay, what are the current conditions like? And now we're gonna, okay, let's say we move from 52% to 42%. Now we go back and sort of understand the experiments from that last cycle. And we're gonna set that next target condition. So maybe now we wanna get it down to 25%. And we're gonna run another round of experiments in a certain amount of time to see if it hits that next target condition. And basically you're just gonna keep doing this over and over again. That's really the continual improvement model that we're operating under.   0:33:22.7 AS: So how would we wrap this up?   0:33:24.4 JD: So the big thing for me is, you sort of have to have a model to bridge that gap between current conditions and future aspirations. Beause there's always a gap between those two things. And what this model does is it gives us a scientific way of thinking and working to close this gap. It's a more powerful model than I've ever sort of seen anywhere. And then literally you put it on a piece of paper like this and then you have to explain it to people over and over and over. And then you have to actually do it with people. So we're actually doing this, getting people excited about running PDSAs. And the most important thing is that the challenge or direction, especially for leaders that are listening to this, you don't stand on this mountaintop and set it and then say, go do it. That's why this team aspect is so important. We're setting this challenge or direction as a team, and then we're working together on the ground. Putting that work in, running those experiments to try to bring this thing about, is a completely different way of working. It's not an accountability system, it's an improvement system.   0:34:39.4 AS: Yeah. That's a great overview of this system that you guys are applying and it's exciting to learn more. So I wanna thank you on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, John. And I thought the discussion was very interesting myself. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book win-win W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I wanna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

In this Concepts Edition episode Uriel and Devin discuss: - Time to value - PDSA vs PDCA - WIP boards and controlling the release of new projects to the team - MES systems slowing innovation and improvements Please join our patreo! https://patreon.com/IncrementalCI And follow us on Instagram and share your improvements and tag us. www.instagram.com/incrementalci In this podcast we discuss concepts from Lean Manufacturing, the Toyota Production System, and general business management to improve our businesses. Thanks for listening! Please drop us a note with any and all feedback! If you have parts you need machined, reach out to Devin@lichenprecision.com and follow on Instagram www.instagram.com/lichen_mfg If you need CNCed Buckles, check out www.austeremfg.com and follow at on Instagram www.instagram.com/austere_manufacturing To reach out to the podcast directly please email fixsomethingtoday@gmail.com

My guest for Episode #509 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Ankit Patel, the founder of My Business Care Team, a BPO company providing services for optometrists, and co-founder with his wife Classic Vision Care, an optometry group in Atlanta. Episode page with transcript and more With a strong background in Lean methodology, Ankit has worked as a Lean consultant at Dell and the Cleveland Clinic, driving process improvements and coaching executives.  He holds a Master's degree in Positive Organizational Development and a Bachelor's in Industrial Engineering.  Recognizing talent acquisition challenges, Ankit partnered with a Filipino team to source skilled, cost-effective staff for various business functions. He now leverages AI for hiring and automation to optimize his optometry practice and BPO services, applying Lean principles to drive efficiency and growth. In this episode, Ankit shares insights from his journey, starting as a lean consultant at Dell and the Cleveland Clinic, and transitioning into optometry, where he focuses on building patient relationships and enhancing processes through lean principles and AI technology. Mark and Ankit discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI in business processes, the importance of positive organizational development, and how appreciative inquiry can drive team alignment and engagement. Ankit also highlights the role of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in managing small businesses and improving training and development with AI tools, offering valuable lessons for anyone interested in continuous improvement and innovative approaches in healthcare and beyond. Questions, Notes, and Highlights: What is positive organizational development, and how did you come to study it? How did your experience at Cleveland Clinic influence your involvement in your current business? How do you balance focusing on optometry with the potential to expand into other medical practices? How do you prioritize where to use AI in your processes without falling into the trap of using it because it's trendy? Can you share an example of improving a process before thinking about automating it with AI? How rapidly is AI technology advancing, and how does that impact your ability to adjust its use in your business? How do you see AI tools facilitating faster PDCA or PDSA cycles in continuous improvement practices? What led you to the positive psychology approach, and how does it differ from traditional organizational development? How do you apply appreciative inquiry in your work, and what impact does it have on team alignment and engagement? Can you discuss the origin and growth of your new business involving AI and BPO for optometry? What role does EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) play in managing your business? How do you evaluate the effectiveness of training and development using AI tools? How do you communicate your practice's focus on building patient relationships in your marketing and branding? The podcast is brought to you by Stiles Associates, the premier executive search firm specializing in the placement of Lean Transformation executives. With a track record of success spanning over 30 years, it's been the trusted partner for the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare sectors. Learn more. This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network. 

In this episode, How Jonas Salk used the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle to Create the Polio Vaccine, I evaluate the actions Jonas Salk took to develop the world changing polio vaccine and how they parallel and exemplify the Plan Do Study Act or "PDSA" cycle used in scientific and medical studies. Further, I share how we can each implement PDSA in personal and professional areas of our lives.Salk and PDSA:How he planned:Altered his initial influenza vaccine techniques to address polio with the killed virus vaccine conceptHow he did:Salk wrote numerous papers that raised awareness and funds for polio vaccine developmentHow he studied:Reviewed and studied the reaction of vaccine in over a million-volunteer test subjectsHow he actedHe stuck with his concepts, reduced polio instances by ~80%, and expanded polio vaccination to over 90 countriesStay safe, consider the PDSA cycle to improve areas of your personal and professional life, and Godspeed,Kevin

In the final episode of the goal setting in classrooms series, John Dues and Andrew Stotz discuss the last three of the 10 Key Lessons for implementing Deming in schools. They finish up with the example of Jessica's 4th-grade science class. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. This is episode six about goal setting through a Deming lens. John, take it away.   0:00:26.4 John Dues: Hey, Andrew, it's good to be back. Yeah, for the past handful of episodes or so, we've been talking about organizational goal setting. We covered these four conditions of healthy goal setting and then got into these 10 key lessons for data analysis. And then we've been looking at those 10 key lessons applied to an improvement project. And we've been talking about a project that was completed by Jessica Cutler and she did a Continual Improvement Fellowship with us here at our schools. And if you remember, Jessica was attempting to improve the joy in learning of her students in her fourth grade science class. So last time we looked at lessons five through seven. Today we're gonna look at those final three lessons, eight, nine and ten applied to her project.   0:01:15.7 AS: It's exciting.   0:01:17.1 JD: Yeah. So we'll jump in here. We'll kind of do a description, a refresher of each lesson. And we'll kind of talk about how it was applied to her specific project, and we'll look at some of her data to kind of bring that live for those of the folks that have video. Let's jump in with lesson number eight. So we've talked about this before, but lesson number eight was: more timely data is better for improvement purposes. So we've talked about this a lot. We've talked about something like state testing data. We've said, it can be useful, but it's not super useful for improvement purposes, because we don't get it until the year ends. And students in our case, have already gone on summer vacation by the time that data comes in. And you know that the analogous data probably happens in lots of different sectors where you get data that lags, to the point that it's not really that useful for improvement purposes.   0:02:15.8 JD: So when we're trying to improve something, more frequent data is helpful because then we can sort of see if an intervention that we're trying is having an effect, the intended effect. We can learn that more quickly if we have more frequent data. And so it's, there's not a hard and fast rule, I don't think for how frequently you should be gathering data. It just sort of needs to be in sync with the improvement context. I think that's the important thing. Whether it's daily or a couple times a day or weekly, or monthly, quarterly, whatever, it's gotta be in sync with whatever you're trying to improve.   0:02:50.5 AS: You made me think about a documentary I saw about, how they do brain surgery and how the patient can't be sedated because they're asking the patient questions about, do you feel this and they're testing whether they're getting... They're trying to, let's say, get rid of a piece of a cancerous growth, and they wanna make sure that they're not getting into an area that's gonna damage their brain. And so, the feedback mechanism that they're getting through their tools and the feedback from the patient, it's horrifying to think of the whole thing.   0:03:27.7 JD: Yeah.   0:03:28.3 AS: It's a perfect example of why more timely data is useful for improvement purposes 'cause imagine if you didn't have that information, you knock the patient out, you get the cancerous growth, but who knows what you get in addition to that.   0:03:43.7 JD: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that's certainly an extreme example, [laughter], but I think it's relevant. No matter what our context, that data allows us to understand what's going on, variation, trends, whether our system is stable, unstable, how we should go about improving. So it's not dissimilar from the doctors in that example.   0:04:06.8 AS: And it's indisputable I think, I would argue. But yet many people may not, they may be operating with data that's not timely. And so this is a reminder that we would pretty much always want that timely data. So that's lesson eight. Wow.   0:04:22.6 JD: Lesson eight. Yeah. And let's see how we can, I'll put a visualization on the screen so you can see what Jessica's data look like. All right. So now you can see. We've looked at these charts before. This is Jessica's process behavior chart for joy in science. So just to reorient, you have the joy percentage that students are feeling after a lesson on the x-axis, sorry, on the y-axis. On the x-axis, you have the school dates where they've collected this survey information from students in Jessica's class.   0:04:57.0 AS: Can you put that in Slide Show view?   0:05:00.4 JD: Yeah. I can do that. Yeah.   0:05:02.7 AS: Just it'll make it bigger, so for the...   0:05:06.5 JD: There you go.   0:05:07.8 AS: For the listeners out there, we're looking at a chart of daily, well, let's say it looks like daily data. There's probably weekends that are not in there because class is not on weekends, but it's the ups and downs of a chart that's ranging between a pretty, a relatively narrow range, and these are the scores that are coming from Jessica's surveying of the students each day, I believe. Correct?   0:05:34.2 JD: Yeah. So each day where Jessica is giving a survey to assess the joy in science that students are feeling, then she's averaging all those students together. And then the plot, the dot is the average of all the students sort of assessment of how much joy they felt in a particular science lesson.   0:05:54.7 AS: And that's the average. So for the listeners out there John's got an average line down the middle of these various data points, and then he is also got a red line above and a red line below the, above the highest point and slightly below the lowest point. Maybe you can explain that a little bit more.   0:06:15.4 JD: Yeah. So with Jessica, you remember originally she started plotting on a line chart or a run chart when we just had a few data points just to kind of get a sense of how things are moving so she could talk about it with her class. And over time what's happened is she's now got, at this point in the project, which she started in January, now this is sort of mid-March. And so she's collected two to three data points a week. So she doesn't survey the kids every day just for time sake, but she's getting two, three data points a week. And so by March, she started just a couple months ago, she's got 28 data points. So that sort of goes back to this idea of more timely data is better for improvement.   0:07:00.9 JD: And a lot of times, let's say a school district or a school does actually survey their students about how, what they think of their classes. That might happen at best once a semester or maybe once a year. And so at the end of the year you have one or two data points. So it's really hard to tell sort of what's actually going on. Compared to this, Jessica's got these 28 data points in just about two months or so of school. So she's got 28 data points to work with. And so what her and her students are doing with this data then, one, they can see how it's moving up and down. So we have, the blue dots are all the plotted points, like you said, the green line is the average running sort of through the middle of the data, and then those red lines are our process limits, the upper and lower natural process limits that sort of tell us the bounds of the system.   0:07:50.4 JD: And that's based on the difference in each successive data point. But the most important thing is that as Jessica and her students are looking at this, initially, they're really just studying it and trying to sort of see how things are going from survey to survey. So one of the things that Deming talked about frequently is not tampering with data, which would be if you sort of, you overreact to a single data point. So let's say, a couple of days in, it dips down from where it started and you say, oh my gosh, we gotta change things. And so that's what Deming is talking about. Not tampering, not overreacting to any single data point. Instead look at this whole picture that you get from these 28 data points and then talk about...   0:08:41.5 JD: In Jessica's case she's talking about with her students, what can we learn from this data? What does the variation from point to point look like? If we keep using the system, the fourth grade science system, if we leave it as is, then we'll probably just keep getting data pretty similar to this over time, unless something more substantial changes either in the negative or the positive. So right now they...   0:09:10.1 AS: And I think for the listeners, it's, you can see that there's really no strong pattern that I can see from this. It's just, there's some, sometimes that there's, seems like there's little trends and stuff like that. But I would say that the level of joy in the science classroom is pretty stable.   0:09:32.1 JD: Pretty stable. Yeah. Pretty high. It's bouncing around maybe a 76% average across those two and a half months or so. And so, they, you kind of consider this like the baseline. They've got a good solid baseline understanding of what joy looks like in this fourth grade science classroom. Did that stop sharing on your end?   0:10:00.2 AS: Yep.   0:10:00.2 JD: Okay, great. So that's lesson eight. So clearly she's gathered a lot of data in a pretty short amount of time. It's timely, it's useful, it's usable, it can be studied by her and her students. So we'll switch it to lesson nine now. So now they've got a good amount of data. They got 28 data points. That's plenty of data to work with. So lesson nine is now we wanna clearly label the start date for an intervention directly in her chart. And remember from earlier episodes, not only are we collecting this data, we're actually putting this up on a screen on a smart board in the classroom, and Jessica and her students are studying this data together. They're actually looking at this, this exact chart and she's explaining sort of kind of like we just did to the listeners. She's explaining what the chart means.   0:10:54.2 JD: And so over time, like once a week she's putting this up on the smart board and now kids are getting used to, how do you read this data? What does this mean? What are all these dots? What do these numbers mean? What do these red lines mean? That type of thing. And so now that they've got enough data, now we can start talking about interventions. That's really what lesson nine is about. And the point here is that you want to clearly, explicitly with a literally like a dotted line in the chart to mark on the day that you're gonna try something new. So you insert this dashed vertical line, we'll take a look at it in a second, on the date the intervention started. And then we're also gonna probably label it something simple so we can remember what intervention we tried at that point in time.   0:11:42.7 JD: So what this then allows the team to do is then to very easily see the data that happened before the intervention and the data that happened after the implementation of this intervention or this change idea. And then once we've started this change and we start plotting points after the change has gone into effect, then we can start seeing or start looking for those patterns in the data that we've talked about, those different rules, those three rules that we've talked about across these episodes. And just to refresh, rule one would be if we see a single data point outside of either of the limits, rule two is if we see eight consecutive points on either side of that green average line, and rule three is if we see three out of four dots in a row that are closer to one of the limits than they are to that central line.   0:12:38.3 JD: So that again, those patterns tell us that something significant, mathematically improbable has happened. It's a big enough magnitude in change that you wouldn't have expected it otherwise. And when we see that pattern, we can be reasonably assured that that intervention that we've tried has worked.   0:12:56.0 AS: And let me ask you about the intervention for just a second because I could imagine that if this project was going on, first question is, does Jessica's students are, obviously know that this experiment is going on?   0:13:08.3 JD: Yes.   0:13:09.8 AS: Because they're filling out a survey. And my first question is, do they know that there's an intervention happening? I would expect that it would be yes, because they're gonna feel or see that intervention. Correct?   0:13:25.1 JD: Sure. Yep.   0:13:25.2 AS: That's my first point that I want to think about. And the second point is, let's imagine now that everybody in the classroom has been seeing this chart and they're, everybody's excited and they got a lot of ideas about how they could improve. Jessica probably has a lot of ideas. So the temptation is to say, let's change these three things and see what happens.   0:13:46.5 JD: Yeah.   0:13:47.1 AS: Is it important that we only do one thing at a time or that one intervention at a time or not? So maybe those are two questions I have in my mind.   0:13:58.6 JD: Yeah, so to the first question, are you, you're saying there there might be some type of participant or...   0:14:02.3 AS: Bias.   0:14:03.3 JD: Observer effect like that they want this to happen. That's certainly possible. But speaking to the second question, what intervention do you go with? Do you go with one or you go with multiple? If you remember a couple of episodes ago we talked about, and we actually looked at a fishbone diagram that Jessica and her students that they created and they said, okay, what causes us to have low joy in class? And then they sort of mapped those, they categorized them, and there were different things like technology not working. If you remember, one was like distractions, like other teachers walk into the room during the lesson. And one of them was others like classmates making a lot of noise, making noises during class and distracting me. And so they mapped out different causes. I think they probably came up with like 12 or 15 different causes as possibilities.   0:14:58.7 JD: And they actually voted as a class. Which of these, if we worked on one of these, which would have the biggest impact? So not every kid voted for it, but the majority or the item that the most kids thought would have the biggest impact was if we could somehow stop all the noises basically. So they came up with that as a class, but not, it wasn't everybody's idea. But I think we've also talked about sort of the lessons from David Langford where once kids see that you're gonna actually take this serious, take their ideas serious and start acting on them, they take the project pretty seriously too. So maybe not a perfect answer, but that's sort of what we...   0:15:38.0 AS: I was thinking that, ultimately you could get short-term blips when you do an intervention and then it stabilizes possibly. That's one possibility. And the second thing I thought is, well, I mean ultimately the objective, whether that's an output from a factory, and keeping, improving that output or whether that's the output related to joy in the classroom as an example, you want it to go up and stay up and you want the students to see it and say, wow, look, it's happening. So, yeah.   0:16:11.7 JD: And there's different ways you can handle this. So this joy thing could go up to a certain point. They're like, I don't know if we can get any more joy, like, it's pretty high. And what you could do at that point is say, okay, I'm gonna assign a student to just sort of, every once in a while, we'll keep doing these surveys and we will sort of keep plotting the data, but we're not gonna talk about a lot. I'm just gonna assign this as a student's job to plot the new data points. And we'll kind of, we'll kind of measure it, but we won't keep up with the intervention 'cause we got it to a point that we're pretty happy with. And now as a class we may wanna switch, switch our attention to something else.   0:16:45.2 JD: So we started getting into the winter months and attendance has dipped. Maybe we've been charting that and say, Hey guys, we gotta, gotta kinda work on this. This is gone below sort of a level that's really good for learning. So let's think about as a group how we could come up with some ideas to raise that. So maybe you turn your attention to something else, 'cause you can't pay attention to everything at once.   0:17:07.2 AS: Yeah, and I think I could use an example in my Valuation Master Class Boot Camp where students were asking for more personal feedback and I realized I couldn't really scale this class if I had to get stuck into hundreds of grading basically. And that's when I came up with the concept of feedback Friday, where one student from each team would present and then I would give feedback, I would give a critique and they would be intense and all students would be watching, it would be recorded, and all of a sudden all the issues related to wanting this personal feedback went away. And therefore, once I instituted it on a regular basis, I went on to the next issue and I made sure that I didn't lose the progress that I had made and continue to make feedback Friday better and better.   0:17:56.2 JD: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great. I'll share my screen so you can kinda see what this looked like in Jessica's class now, what the chart looks like now. So now you see that same chart, that same process behavior chart, exact same one we were just looking at except now you can see this, this dashed vertical line that marks the spot where the intervention was started that we just talked about. And what the kids are actually doing, and Jessica are running a PDSA cycle, a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. That's the experimental cycle in her class. And what they're running that PDSA on is, again, how can we put something in place to reduce the distracting noises. And so what the students actually said is if we get a deduction for making noises, then there will be less noises. And so in the school's sort of management system, a deduction is sort of like a demerit.   0:19:00.0 JD: If you maybe went to a Catholic school or something like that, or some public schools had demerits as well, but basically it's like a minor infraction basically that goes home or that gets communicated to parents at the end of the week. But the kids came up with this so their basic premise is, their plan, their prediction is if there are less noises, we'll be able to enjoy science class. And if we give deductions for these noises, then there'll be less noises. So some people may push back, well, I don't think you should give deductions or something like that, but which, fine, you could have that opinion. But I think the powerful point here is this is, the students created this, it was their idea. And so they're testing that idea to see if it actually has impact.   0:19:44.8 JD: And they're learning to do that test in this scientific thinking way by using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and seeing if it actually has an impact on their data. So at the point where they draw this dashed line, let's call that March 19th, we can see a couple of additional data points have been gathered. So you can see the data went up from 3/18 to 3/21. So from March 18th to March 21st, rose from about, let's call it 73% or so, up to about 76% on March 21st. And then that next day it rose another percent or two and let's call that 78%.   0:20:28.1 JD: And so the trap here is you could say, okay, we did this intervention and it made things better. But the key point is the data did go up, but we haven't gathered enough additional data to see one of those patterns that we talked about that would say, oh, this actually has had a significant change. Because before the dashed line, you can see data points that are as high or even higher than some of these ones that we see after the PDSA is started. So it's too early to say one way or another if this intervention is having an impact. So we're not gonna overreact. You could see a place where you're so excited that it did go up a couple of days from where it was on March 18th before you started this experiment, but that's a trap. Because it's still just common cause data, still just bouncing around that average, it's still within the bounds of the red process limits that define the science system.   0:21:34.2 AS: I have an experiment going on in my latest Valuation Master Class Boot Camp, but in that case, it's a 6-week period that I'm testing, and then I see the outcome at the end of the six weeks to test whether my hypothesis was right or not. Whereas here it's real time trying to understand what's happening. So yes, you can be tempted when it's real time to try to jump to conclusion, but when you said, well, okay, I can't really get the answer to this conclusion until I've run the test in a fixed time period, then it's you don't have as much of that temptation to draw a conclusion.   0:22:14.1 JD: Yeah. And if I actually was... I should have actually taken this a step farther. I marked it with this Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. What I should have done too is write "noises" or something like that, deduction for noises, some small annotation, so it'd be clear what this PDSA cycle is.   0:22:32.1 AS: In other words, you're saying identify the intervention by the vertical line, but also label it as to what that intervention was, which you've done before on the other chart. I remember.   0:22:42.1 JD: Yeah. And then it'd be sort of just looking at this when she puts this up on the smart board for the class to see it again too. Oh yeah yeah, that's when we ran that first intervention and that was that intervention where we did deductions for noises. But the bigger point is that this never happens where you have some data, you understand a system, you plan systematic intervention, and then you gather more data right after it to see if it's having an impact. We'd never do that ever, in education, ever. Ever have I ever seen this before. Nothing like this. Just this little setup combining the process behavior chart with the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, I think is very, very, very powerful and very different approach than what school improvement.   0:23:33.4 AS: Exciting.   0:23:34.6 JD: Yeah. The typical approach is to school improvement. So I'll stop that share for a second there, and we can do a quick overview of lesson 10 and then jump back into the chart as more data has been gathered. So lesson 10 is: the purpose of data analysis is insight. Seems pretty straightforward. This is one of those key teachings from Dr. Donald Wheeler who we've talked about. He taught us that the best analysis is the simplest analysis, which provides the needed insight.   0:24:08.1 AS: So repeat lesson 10, again, the purpose of...   0:24:11.6 JD: The purpose of data analysis is insight.   0:24:14.7 AS: Yep.   0:24:15.6 JD: So just plotting the dots on the run chart and turning the run chart into the process behavior chart, that's the most straightforward method for understanding how our data is performing over time. We've talked about this a lot, but it's way more intuitive to understand the data and how it's moving than if you just stored it in a table or a spreadsheet. Got to use these time sequence charts. That's so very important.   0:24:42.2 AS: And I was just looking at the definition of insight, which is a clear, deep, and sometimes sudden understanding of a complicated problem or situation.   0:24:51.6 JD: Yeah. And I think that can happen, much more likely to happen when you have the data visualized in this way than the ways that we typically visualize data in just like a table or a spreadsheet. And so in Jessica's case, we left off on March 22nd and they had done two surveys after the intervention. And so then of course what they do is they continue over the next 4, or 5, 6 weeks, gathering more of that data as they're running that intervention, then we can sort of switch back and see what that data is looking like now.   0:25:28.3 AS: Exciting.   0:25:30.3 JD: So we have this same chart with that additional data. So we have data all the way out to now April 11th. So they run this PDSA for about a month, three weeks, month, three, four weeks.   0:25:47.9 AS: And that's 11 data points after the intervention. Okay.   0:25:54.0 JD: Yep. Purposeful. So what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah. So three, four weeks for a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, that's a pretty good amount of time. Two to four weeks, I've kind of found is a sweet spot. Shorter than that, it's hard to get enough data back to see if your intervention has made a difference. Longer than that, then it's you're getting away from the sort of adaptability, the ability to sort of build on an early intervention, make the tweaks you need to. So that two to four week time period for your PDSA seems like a sweet spot to me. So she's continued to collect this joy in learning data to see... Basically what her and her class are doing is seeing if their theory is correct. Does this idea of giving deductions for making noises have an impact? Is it effective?   0:26:44.0 JD: So if they learn, if the data comes back and there is no change, no indication of improvement, then a lot of people will say, well, my experiment has failed. And my answer to that is, no, it hasn't failed. It might not have worked like you wanted, but you learn very quickly that that noise deduction is not going to work and we're gonna try some other thing, some other intervention. We learn that very very quickly within 3 or 4 weeks that we need to try something new. Now, in the case of Jessica's class, that's not what happened. So you can actually see that dotted line, vertical dotted line is still at March 19th, we have those 11 additional data points. And you can actually see, if you count, starting with March 21st, you count 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11 data points that are above that green average line from before.   0:27:45.5 JD: So originally the red lines, the limits and the central line would just be straight across. But once I see that eight or more of those are on one side of that central line, then I actually shift the limits and the average line, 'cause I have a new system. I've shifted it up and that actually is an indication that this intervention has worked, because we said... Now for those that are watching, it doesn't appear that all the blue dots are above that green line, but they were before the shift. Remember the shift indicates a new system. So I go back to the point where the first dot of the 8 or more in a row occurred, and that's where I have indicated a new system with the shift in the limits and the central line. So this, their theory was actually correct. This idea of giving a deduction for noises actually worked to improve the joy in Jessica's science class. It was a successful experiment.   0:28:52.7 AS: Can I draw on your chart there and ask some questions?   0:29:00.5 JD: Sure. Yeah.   0:29:00.6 AS: So one of my questions is, is it possible, for instance, in the preliminary period, let's say the first 20 days or so that things were kind of stabilized and then what we saw is that things potentially improved here in the period before the intervention and that the intervention caused an increase, but it may not be as significant as it appears based upon the prior, the most recent, let's say 10 days or something like that. So that's my question on it. I'll delete my drawings there.   0:29:46.3 JD: Yeah, I think that's a fair question. So, the reason I didn't shift those before, despite you do see a pattern, so before the dotted line, I considered that period a baseline period where we were just collecting 'cause they hadn't tried anything yet. So Dr. Wheeler has these series of four questions. So in addition to seeing a signal, he's got these other sort of questions that he typically asks and that they're yes/no questions. And you want the answer to all those to be yes. And one of 'em is like, do you know why an improvement or a decline happened? And if you don't, then you really shouldn't shift the limits. So that's why I didn't shift them before. I chose not to shift them until we actually did something, actually tried something.   0:30:33.2 AS: Which is basically saying that you're trying to get the voice of the students, a clear voice, and that may be that over the time of the intervention, it could be that the... Sorry, over the time of the initial data gathering, that the repetition of it may have caused students to feel more joy in the classroom because they were being asked and maybe that started to adjust a little bit up and there's the baseline, so. Yep. Okay.   0:31:01.6 JD: Yeah. And so this is sort of where the project ended for the fellowship that Jessica was doing. But, what would happen if we could sort of see what happened, further out in the school year is that, either Jessica and the class could then be sort of satisfied with where the joy in learning is at this point where the improvement occurred. Or they could run another cycle, sort of testing, sort of a tweaked version of that noise reduction PDSA, that intervention or they could add something to it.   0:31:43.0 AS: Or they could have run another fishbone point, maybe the noise wasn't actually the students thought it would be the number one contributor, but, maybe by looking at the next one they could see, oh, hey, wait a minute, this may be a higher contributor or not.   0:32:01.2 JD: Yeah. And when you dug into the actual plan, the specifics of the plan, how that noise deduction was going to work, there may be something in that plan that didn't go as planned and that's where you would have to lean on, 'cause we've talked about the three sort of parts of the improvement team that you need. You need the frontline people. That's the students. You need the person with the authority to change the system. That's Jessica. And then someone with the knowledge of the system, profound knowledge. That's me. Well, those, the Jessica and her students are the one in that every day. So they're gonna have learning about how that intervention went, that would then inform the second cycle of the PDSA, whatever that was gonna be, whatever they're gonna work on next. The learning from the first cycle is gonna inform that sort of next cycle.   0:32:51.4 JD: So the idea is that you don't just run a PDSA once but you repeatedly test interventions or change ideas until you get that system where you want it to be.   0:33:01.1 AS: So for the listeners and viewers out there, I bet you're thinking gosh, Jessica's pretty lucky to have John help her to go through this. And I think about lots of things that I want to talk to you about [laughter] about my testing in my own business, and I know in my own teaching, but also in my business. So that I think is one of the exciting things about this is the idea that we just, we do a lot of these things in our head sometimes. I think this will make a difference and, but we're not doing this level of detail usually in the way that we're actually performing the tests and trying to see what the outcomes are.   0:33:43.9 JD: Yeah I think that for school people too, I think when we've attempted to improve schools, reform schools, what happens is we go really fast and the learning actually happens very slowly and we don't really appreciate what it actually takes to change something in practice. And what happens then is to the frontline people like teachers... The reformers have good intentions but the people on the front line just get worn out basically, and a lot of times nothing actually even improves. You just wear people out. You make these big changes go fast and wide in the system and you don't really know exactly what to do on the ground because the opposite is having Jessica's classroom. They're actually learning fast but trying very small changes and getting feedback right in the place where that feedback needs to be given right in the classroom and then they can then learn from that and make changes.   0:34:49.8 JD: And again, it may seem smaller. Maybe it doesn't seem that revolutionary to people but to me, I think it's a completely revolutionary, completely different way to do school improvement that actually kind of honors the expertise of the teacher in the classroom, it takes into account how students are experiencing a change and then I'm kind of providing a method that they can use to then make that classroom better for everybody so and I think in doing so students more likely to find joy in their work, joy in their learnings, teachers more likely to find joy in their work as well. So to me it's a win-win for all those involved.   0:35:34.9 AS: Fantastic. Well, should we wrap up there?   0:35:40.6 JD: Yeah, I think that's a good place to wrap up this particular series.   0:35:45.1 AS: And maybe you could just review for the whole series of what we've done just to kind of make sure that everybody's clear and if somebody just came in on this one they know a little bit of the flow of what they're gonna get in the prior ones.   0:36:00.4 JD: Yeah. So we did six episodes and in those six episodes we started off just talking about what do you need to have in place for healthy goal setting at an organizational level, and we put four conditions in place that before you ever set a goal you should have to understand the capability of your system, you have to understand the variation within your system, you have to understand if the system that you're studying is stable, and then you have to have a logical answer to the question by what method. By what method are you gonna bring about improvement or by what method you're gonna get to this goal that you wanna set. So we talked about that, you gotta have these four conditions in place and without those we said goal setting is often an act of desperation.   0:36:49.7 JD: And then from there what we did is start talking about these 10 key lessons for data analysis so as you get the data about the goal and you start to understand the conditions for that system of process we could use those 10 data lessons to then interpret the data that we're looking at or studying and then we basically did that over the first four episodes. In the last few episodes what we've done is look at those lessons applied to Jessica's improvement project and that's what we just wrapped up looking at those 10 lessons.   0:37:23.7 AS: I don't know about the listeners and viewers but for me this type of stuff just gets me excited about how we can improve the way we improve.   0:37:33.4 JD: Yeah. For sure.   0:37:34.9 AS: And that's exciting. So John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute I want to thank you again for this discussion, and for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book Win-Win W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to joy in work."

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Gemma is an Improvement Coach, Trainer, and Visual Facilitator, based in the UK and working globally. Gemma started her career in Engineering and quickly found a passion for Improvement. She spent 20 years in Manufacturing across numerous industries, then in 2019 she left employment to build her own business. Gemma's mission is to help organisations and individuals be the BEST they can be, by helping people SEE, helping people THINK, and helping people CHANGE.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact CEOD@bmhcc.org if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Dr. Deming developed his philosophy over time and in conversations with others, not in isolation. As learners, we tend to forget that context, but it's important to remember because no one implements Deming in isolation, either. In this conversation, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz discuss how there's no such thing as a purely Deming organization and why that's good. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussions with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. Today is episode 20, entitled, System of Profound Wisdom. Bill, take it Away.   0:00:31.6 Bill Bellows: But not just for 30 years. I forgot to say I started when I was 12.   0:00:36.6 AS: Yes. [laughter] Yes. And you've got the hair to prove it.   [laughter]   0:00:43.7 BB: All right. Now, actually, I was thinking the proposal and the title, I thought... I mean, System of Profound Wisdom is cool, System of Profound Questions. Either one of those is good. Let's see which title comes out.   0:00:57.6 AS: Yeah. And I think we'll have to also understand that may some listeners that may not even know what System of Profound Knowledge means, they've been listening. They do. But if today's their first episode, we also gotta break that down, just briefly.   0:01:10.9 BB: Yeah. Okay, let's do that. All right. Well, let me give an opening a quote from Dr. Deming from chapter three, and then we can explain this SoPK, System of Profound Knowledge, thing. But in chapter three of Dr. Deming's last book, The New Economics, the last edition, edition three, came out in 2018. And chapter three, Dr. Deming says, "We saw in the last chapter, we are living under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management. Most people imagine that this style has always existed. It is a fixture. Actually, it is a modern invention a trap that has led us into decline. Transformation is required. Education and government, along with industry, are also in need of transformation. The System of Profound Knowledge to be introduced in the next chapter is a theory for transformation." So you wanna...   0:02:15.4 AS: That's good.   0:02:16.7 BB: So let's say something. Let's just say something about SoPK. How would you explain that?   0:02:23.1 AS: Yeah. Well, actually, I wanna talk very briefly about what you just said, because it's just...   0:02:27.1 BB: Oh, sure.   0:02:29.6 AS: At one point, I thought, "It's a system of knowledge." But he just said it was a system of transformation.   0:02:38.7 BB: It's a theory for transformation.   0:02:40.1 AS: A theory for transformation. Okay, got it. I see. And one of the things that I... I look at Toyota so much just 'cause it's so fascinating and how they've survived all these years, the continuity in the business, the continuity and the profitability of the business, the continued march to become the number one auto producer in the world, and having faced all the ups and downs and survived. And I just think that what they have is a learning organization. No matter what the challenge is, they're trying to apply learning tools, like System of Profound Knowledge, like PDSA, to try to figure out how to solve this problem. And I think that many companies, including at times my companies, [chuckle] we sometimes will scramble and we'll lose knowledge and we won't gain knowledge. And so the System of Profound Knowledge, to me, is all about the idea of how do we build a base of knowledge in our business and then build upon that base of knowledge rather than destroy it when the new management comes in or when a new management idea comes in.   0:04:00.7 AS: And that's something I've just been thinking about a lot. Because I do know a company that I've been doing some work with, and they basically threw away a huge amount of work that they did on System of Profound Knowledge and stuff to go with the prevailing system of management, is like going back. And now, they just produced a loss in the first quarter, and I just think, "Interesting. Interesting."   0:04:27.6 BB: Well, a couple things come to mind based on what you said. One is I would propose that Toyota, I'm in agreement of "Toyota's a learning organization." And that'll come up later. I've got some other thoughts on learning organizations. And we know that they were influenced by Dr. Deming. To what degree, I'm not sure of. Shoichiro Toyoda, who is one of the sons of the founder of the Toyota Motor Car Company, was honored with a Deming prize in 1990. And I believe it came from JUSE, as opposed to the American Society for Quality. One or the other. He was honored with a Deming Prize.   0:05:32.0 AS: Yep.   0:05:33.5 BB: Again, I don't know if it's Deming Prize or Deming Medal. But I know he was honored. What's most important, the point I wanna make is, upon receiving it he said, "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the impact of Dr. Deming on Toyota." But, if I was to look at the Toyota Production System website, Toyota's Toyota Production System website, which I've done numerous times, I'd be hard-pressed to find anything on that page that I could say, "You see this word, Andrew? You see this sentence, Andrew? You see this sentiment? That's Deming." Not at all. Not at all. It's Taiichi Ohno. It's Shigeo Shingo. I'm not saying it's not good, but all those ideas predate Deming going to Japan in 1950. Taiichi Ohno joined Toyota right out of college as an industrial engineer in 1933, I believe. The Japanese Army, I mentioned in a previous episode, in 1942, wanted him to move from Toyota's loom works for making cloth to their automobile works for making Jeeps. This comes from a book that I would highly recommend. Last time we were talking about books. I wanted to read a book, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago. I wanted to read a book about Toyota, but not one written by someone at MIT or university. I didn't wanna read a book written by an academic. I've done that.   0:07:15.1 BB: I wanted to read a book by somebody inside Toyota, get that perspective, that viewpoint. And the book, Against All Odds, the... Wait I'll get the complete title. Against All Odds: The Story of the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Family That Changed it. The first author, Yukiyasu Togo, T-O-G-O, and William Wartman. I have a friend who worked there. Worked... Let me back up. [chuckle] Togo, Mr. Togo, born and raised in Japan, worked for Toyota in Japan, came to the States in the '60s and opened the doors to Toyota Motors, USA. So, he was the first person running that operation in Los Angeles. And it was here for years. I think it's now in Texas. My late friend, Bill Cummings, worked there in marketing. And my friend, Bill, was part of the team that was working on a proposal for a Lexus. And he has amazing stories of Togo. He said, "Any executive... " And I don't know how high that... What range, from factory manager, VPs. But he said the executives there had their use, free use, they had a company car. And he said Togo drove a Celica. Not a Celica. He drove a... What's their base model? Not a...   0:08:56.2 AS: A Corolla?   0:08:57.7 BB: Corolla. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. He drove a Corolla. He didn't drive... And I said, "Why did he drive a Corolla?" Because it was their biggest selling car, and he wanted to know what most people were experiencing. He could have been driving the highest level cars they had at the time. Again, this is before a Lexus. And so in this book, it talks about the history of Toyota, Taiichi Ohno coming in, Shigeo Shingo's contributions, and the influence of Dr. Deming. And there's a really fascinating account how in 1950, a young manager, Shoichiro Toyoda, was confronted with a challenge that they couldn't repair the cars as fast as they could sell them. This is post-war Japan. They found a car with phenomenal market success. Prior to that, they were trying to sell taxicabs, 'cause people could not... I mean, buying a car as a family was not an option. But by 1950, it was beginning to be the case. And the challenge that Shoichiro Toyoda faced was improving the quality, 'cause they couldn't fix them as fast as they could sell them. And yet, so I have no doubt that that young manager, who would go on to become the chairman, whatever the titles are, no doubt he was influenced by Dr. Deming. But I don't know what that means.   0:10:23.4 BB: That does not... The Toyota Production System is not Deming. And that's as evidenced by this talk about eliminating waste. And those are not Deming concepts. But I believe, back to your point, that his work helped create a foundation for learning. But I would also propose, Andrew, that everything I've read and studied quite a bit about the Toyota Production System, Lean, The Machine That Changed The World, nothing in there explains reliability. To me, reliability is how parts come together, work together. 'Cause as we've talked, a bunch of parts that meet print and meet print all over the place could have different levels of reliability, because meeting requirements, as we've talked in earlier episodes, ain't all it's cracked up to be. So I firmly believe... And I also mentioned to you, I sat for 14 hours flying home from Japan with a young engineer who worked for Toyota, and they do manage variation as Dr. Taguchi proposed. That is not revealed. But there's definitely something going on. But I would also say that I think the trouble they ran into was trying to be the number one car maker, and now they're back to the model of, "If we are good at what we do, then that will follow."   0:11:56.8 BB: And I'm gonna talk later about Tom Johnson's book, just to reinforce that, 'cause Tom, a former professor of management at Portland State University, has visited Toyota plants numerous times back before people found out how popular it was. But what I want to get into is... What we've been talking about the last couple episodes is Dr. Deming uses this term, transformation. And as I shared an article last time by John Kotter, the classic leadership professor, former, he's retired, at the University... Oh, sorry, Harvard Business School. And what he's talking about for transformation is, I don't think, [chuckle] maybe a little bit of crossover with what Dr. Deming is talking about. What we talked about last time is, Deming's transformation is a personal thing that we hear the world differently, see the world differently. We ask different questions. And that's not what Kotter is talking about. And it's not to dismiss all that what Kotter is talking about, but just because we're talking about transformation doesn't mean we mean the same thing.   0:13:10.6 BB: And likewise, we can talk about a Deming organization and a non-Deming organization. What teamwork means in both is different. In a Deming organization, we understand performance is caused by the system, not the workers taken individually. And as a result of that, we're not going to see performance appraisals, which are measures of individuals. Whereas in a non-Deming organization, we're going to see performance appraisals, KPIs flow down to individuals. [chuckle] The other thing I had in my notes is, are there really two types of organizations? No, that's just a model. [chuckle] So, really, it's a continuum of organizations. And going back to George Box, all models are wrong, some are useful. But we talked earlier, you mentioned the learning organization. Well, I'm sure, Andrew, that we have both worked in non-Deming organizations, and we have seen, and we have seen people as learners in a non-Deming organization, but what are they learning? [chuckle] It could be learning to tell the boss what they want to hear. They could be learning to hide information that could cause pain. [chuckle] Those organizations are filled with learners, but it's about learning that makes things worse. It's like digging the pit deeper. What Deming is talking about is learning that improves how the organization operates, and as a result, improves profit. In a non-Deming organization, that learning is actually destroying profit.   0:14:51.8 BB: All right. And early, spoke... Russ, Russ and Dr. Deming spoke for about three hours in 1992. It got condensed down to a volume 21 of The Deming Library, for which our viewers, if you're a subscriber to DemingNEXT, you can watch it in its entirety. All the Deming videos produced by Clare Crawford-Mason are in that. You can see excerpts of volume 21, which is... Believe is theory of a system of education, and it's Russ Ackoff and Dr. Deming for a half hour. So you can find excerpts of that on The Deming Institute's YouTube channel.   0:15:37.0 BB: And what I wanted to bring up is in there, Russ explains to Dr. Deming the DIKUW model that we've spoken about in previous episodes, where D is data. That's raw numbers, Russ would say. I is information. When we turn those raw numbers into distances and times and weights, Russ would say that information is what the newspaper writer writes, who did what to whom. Knowledge, the K, could be someone's explanation as to how these things happened. U, understanding. Understanding is when you step back and look at the container. Russ would say that knowledge, knowledge is what you're using in developing to take apart a car or to take apart a washing machine and see how all these things work together. But understanding is needed to explain why the driver sits on the left versus the right, why the car is designed for a family of four, why the washing machine is designed for a factor of four. That's not inside it. That's the understanding looking outward piece that Russ would also refer to as synthesis. And then the W, that's the wisdom piece. What do I do with all this stuff? And what Russ is talking about is part of wisdom is doing the right things right. So, I wanted to touch upon in this episode is why did Dr. Deming refer to his system as the System of Profound Knowledge? Why not the System of Profound Understanding? Why not the System of Profound Wisdom? And I think, had he lived longer, maybe he would have expanded. Maybe he would have had...   0:17:28.4 BB: And I think that's the case. I think it's... 'Cause I just think... And this is what's so interesting, is, if you look at Dr. Deming's work in isolation and not go off and look at other's work, such as Tom Johnson or Russ, you can start asking questions like this.   0:17:45.7 AS: One thing I was going to interject is that I took my first Deming seminar in 1989, I believe, or 1990. And then I took my second one with Dr. Deming in 1992. And then soon after that, I moved to Thailand and kind of went into a different life, teaching finance and then working in the stock market. And then we set up our factory here for coffee business. But it wasn't until another 10 years, maybe 15 years, that I reignited my flame for what Dr. Deming was doing. And that's when I wrote my book about Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming's 14 Points. And what I, so, I was revisiting the material that had impacted me so much. And I found this new topic called System of Profound Knowledge. I never heard of that. And I realized that, it really fully fledged came out in 1993, The New Economics, which I didn't get. I only had Out of the Crisis.   0:18:49.9 BB: '93.   0:18:49.9 AS: Yeah. And so that just was fascinating to go back to what was already, the oldest teacher I ever had in my life at '92, leave it, come back 10, 15 years later and find out, wait a minute, he added on even more in his final book.   0:19:10.4 BB: Well, Joyce Orsini, who was recruited by Fordham University at the encouragement of Dr. Deming, or the suggestion of Dr. Deming to lead their Deming Scholars MBA program in 1990. Professor Marta Mooney, professor of accounting, who I had the great fortune of meeting several times, was very inspired by Dr. Deming's work. And was able to get his permission to have an MBA program in his name called the Deming Scholars MBA program. And when she asked him for a recommendation, "Who should lead this program?" It was Joyce Orsini, who at the time I think was a vice president at a bank in New York. I'm not sure, possibly in human resources, but I know she was in New York as a vice president.   0:20:10.0 BB: And I believe she had finished her PhD under Dr. Deming at NYU by that time. And the reason I bring up Joyce's name, I met her after Dr. Deming had died. Nancy Mann, who is running a company called Quality Enhancement Seminars with, a, at the beginning one product, Dr. Deming's 4-Day seminar, when Dr. Deming died, and I had mentioned, I was at his last seminar in December '93, she continued offering 4-day seminars. And I met her later that year when she was paired with Ron Moen and they were together presenting it, and others were paired presenting it. And at one point, as I got to know Joyce, she said, "His last five years were borrowed time." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "He started working on the book in 19'" evidently the '87, '88 timeframe, he started to articulate these words, Profound Knowledge.   0:21:11.0 BB: And I know he had, on a regular basis, he had dinner engagements with friends including Claire Crawford-Mason and her husband. And Claire has some amazing stories of Deming coming by with these ideas. And she said, once she said, "What is this?" And he is, she took out a napkin, a discretely, wrote down the, "an understanding of the difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Difference between understanding special causes versus common causes." And she just wrote all this stuff down, typed it up. When he showed up the next week, she greeted him at the door and said, and she said, he said, This is Claire. And Claire said, he said, "What's that?" He says, "Well, I took notes last week."   0:21:54.2 BB: And he says, "I can do better." [chuckle] And so week by week by week. And as he interacted with the people around him, he whittled it down. And I'm guessing it put it into some, there's a technique for grouping things, you, where on post-it notes and you come up with four categories and these things all go over here. There's one of the elements of that, one of the 16 had to, or 18 or so, had to do with Dr. Taguchi's loss function. So that could have gone into the, maybe the variation piece, maybe the systems piece. But Joyce said, basically he was frustrated that the 14 Points were essentially kind of a cookbook where you saw things like, "cease dependence on inspection" interpreted as "get rid of the inspectors." And so he knew and I'd say, guided by his own production of a system mindset, he knew that what he was articulating and the feedback were inconsistent.   0:23:01.9 BB: And I've gotta keep trying. And she said, "His last five years on borrowed time as he was dying of cancer, was just trying to get this message out." So I first got exposed to it 19, spring of '90 when I saw him speaking in Connecticut. And I was all about Taguchi expecting him to, I didn't know what to expect, but I knew what I was seeing and hearing from Dr. Taguchi when I heard Dr. Deming talk about Red Beads. I don't know anything about that, common cause and special cause, I didn't know anything about that. And so for me, it was just a bunch of stuff, and I just tucked it away. But when the book came out in '93, then it really made sense. But I just had to see a lot of the prevailing style of management in the role I had as an improvement specialist, become, [chuckle] a firefighter or a fireman helping people out.   0:24:01.5 AS: I noticed as I've gotten older that, I do start to connect the pieces together of various disciplines and various bits of knowledge to realize, so for instance, in my case, I'm teaching a corporate strategy course right now at the university. Tonight's, in fact, the last night of this particular intake. And my area of expertise is in finance, but now I see the connection between strategy and finance, and how a good strategy is going to be reflected in superior financial performance relative to peers. And of course, I know how to measure that very well. So I can synthesize more and more different areas of things that I know things about, that I just couldn't do when I was younger. So I can see, and he was always learning, obviously. So I can see how he, and also I can also see the idea of, I need bigger principles. I need bigger as you said, theory for transformation. I need, I need to be able to put this into a framework that brings all that together. And I'm still feeling frustrated about some of that, where I'm at with some of that, because I'm kind of halfway in my progress on that. But I definitely can see the idea of that coming later in life as I approach the big 6-0.   0:25:37.3 BB: The big 6-0, [chuckle] Well, but a big part, I mean, based on what you're talking about, it ended up... Previously we spoke about Richard Rumelt's work, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, and I mentioned that I use a lecture by Richard Rumelt, I think it was 2011 or so. It was right after his book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy came out. He spoke at the London School of Economics, and our listeners can find it if you just did a Google search for Richard Rumelt, that's R-U-M... One M. E-L-T. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy. LSE, London School of Economics. Brilliant, brilliant lecture. And I've seen it numerous times for one of my university courses. And he is like Deming, he doesn't suffer fools. And, it finally dawned on me, Deming organizations, if we can use this simple Deming versus non-Deming or Red Pen versus Blue Pen, and as, George Box would say, all models are wrong, some are useful. If we can use that model, I think it's easy to see that what frustrates Rumelt is you've got all these non-Deming companies coming up with strategies without a method.   0:27:00.0 BB: What Rumelt also talks about is not only do you need a method, but you have to be honest on what's in the way of us achieving this? Again, Dr. Deming would say, if you didn't need a method, why don't you're already achieving the results? And so it just dawned on me thinking the reason he's so frustrated, and I think that's one word you can use to describe him, but if he is talking to senior staff lacking this, an understanding of Deming's work, then he is getting a lot of bad strategies. And organizations that would understand what Dr. Deming's talking about, would greatly benefit from Rumelt's work. And they would be one, they'd have the benefit of having an organization that is beginning or is understanding what a transformation guided by Dr. Deming's work is about. And then you could look up and you're naturally inclined to have good or better strategy than worser strategies.   0:28:02.2 BB: And then you have the benefit of, profit's not the reason, profit is the result of all that. And, but next thing I wanna point out is, and I think we talked about it last time, but I just wanted to make sure it was up here, is I've come across recently and I'm not sure talking with who, but there's this what's in vogue today? Data-driven decisions. And again, whenever I hear the word data, I think backed in Ackoff's DIKUW model, I think data-driven. Well, first Dr. Deming would say, the most important numbers are unknown and unknowable. So if you're doing things on a data-driven way, then you're missing the rest of Dr. Deming's theory of management. But why not knowledge-driven decisions, why not understanding-driven decisions And beyond that, why not, right? How long... [laughter] I guess we can... Part of the reason we're doing these Andrew is that we'd like to believe we're helping people move in the direction from data-driven decisions to wisdom-driven decisions, right?   0:29:13.1 AS: Yeah. In fact, you even had the gall to name this episode the System of Profound Wisdom.   0:29:24.0 BB: And that's the title.   0:29:24.9 AS: There it is.   0:29:28.9 BB: But in terms of, I'll give you a fun story from Rocketdyne years ago, and I was talking with a manager in the quality organization and he says, "you know what the problem is, you know what the problem is?" I said, "what?" He says, "the problem is the executives are not getting the data fast enough." And I said, "what data?" He says "the scrap and rework data, they're just not getting it fast enough." So I said, "no matter how fast they get it, it's already happened."   [laughter]   0:30:00.0 BB: But it was just, and I just couldn't get through to him that, that if we're being reactive and talking about scrap and rework, it's already happened. By the time the... If the executives hear it a second later, it's already happened. It's still old news.   0:30:14.7 AS: And if that executive would've been thinking he would've said, but Bill, I want to be on the cutting edge of history.   0:30:23.1 BB: Yeah, it's like...   0:30:24.6 AS: I don't want information, I don't want old information, really old. I just want it as new as it can be, but still old.   0:30:32.9 BB: Well, it reminds me of an Ackoff quote is, instead of... It's "Change or be changed." Ackoff talked about organizations that instead of them being ready for what happens, they create what's gonna happen, which would be more of a Deming organizational approach. Anyway, we talked about books last time and I thought it'd be neat to share a couple books as one as I've shared the Against All Odds Book about Toyota.   0:31:08.8 AS: Which I'll say is on Amazon, but it's only looks like it's a used book and it's priced at about 70 bucks. So I've just...   0:31:16.2 BB: How much?   0:31:16.8 AS: Got that one down? 70 bucks? Because I think it's, you're buying it from someone who has it as a their own edition or something. I don't know.   0:31:23.8 BB: It's not uncommon. This is a, insider used book thing. It's not uncommon that you'll see books on Amazon for 70, but if you go to ThriftBooks or Abe Books, you can, I have found multi-$100 books elsewhere. I don't know how that happens, but it does. Anyway, another book I wanted to reference in today's episode is Profit Beyond Measure subtitle, Extraordinary Results through Attention to Work and People, published in 2000. You can... I don't know if you can get that new, you definitely get it old or used, written by, H. Thomas Johnson. H is for Howard, he goes by Tom, Tom Johnson. Brilliant, brilliant mind. He visited Rocketdyne a few times.   0:32:17.1 BB: On the inside cover page, Tom wrote, "This book is dedicated to the memory of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, 1900-1993. May the seventh generation after us know a world shaped by his thinking." And in the book, you'll find this quote, and I've used it in a previous episode, but for those who may be hearing it first here and Tom's a deep thinker. He's, and as well as his wife Elaine, they're two very deep thinkers. They've both spoke at Rocketdyne numerous times. But one of my favorite quotes from Tom is, "How the world we perceive works depends on how we think. The world we perceive is the world we bring forth through our thinking." And again, it goes back to, we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. We hear the world as we are. I wrote a blog for The Deming Institute. If our listeners would like to find it, if you just do a search for Deming blog, Bellows and Johnson, you'll find the blog. And the blog is about the book Profit Beyond Measure. And in there, I said, “In keeping with Myron Tribus' observation that what you see depends upon what you thought before you looked, Johnson's background as a cost accountant, guided by seminars and conversations with Dr. Deming, prepared him to see Toyota as a living system,” right? You talk about Toyota.   0:33:53.9 BB: He saw it as a living system, not a value stream of independent parts. And that was, that's me talking. I mean, Tom talked about Toyota's living system. And then I put in there with the Toyota Production System, people talk about value streams. Well, in those value streams, they have a defect, good part, bad part model that the parts are handed off, handed off, handed off. That is ostensibly a value stream of independent parts 'cause the quality model of the Toyota Production System, if you study it anywhere, is not Genichi Taguchi. It's the classic good parts and bad parts. And if we're handing off good parts, they are not interdependent. They are independent. And then I close with, "instead of seeing a focus on the elimination of waste and non-value added efforts, Johnson saw self-organization, interdependence, and diversity, the three, as the three primary principles of his approach, which he called Management By Means." And so what's neat, Andrew, is he, Tom was as a student of Deming's work, attending Dr. Deming seminars, hearing about SoPK, System of Profound Knowledge, and he in parallel developed his own model that he calls Management By Means. But what's neat is if you compare the two, there's three principles. So he says self-organization.   0:35:31.0 BB: Well, that's kind of like psychology and people. So we can self-organize interdependence, the other self-organized, but we're connected with one another. So that's, that's kind of a systems perspective there as well. And the third one, diversity. So when I think of diversity, I think of variation. I can also think in terms of people. So that what I don't see in there explicitly is Theory of Knowledge. But Tom's developing this model in parallel with Dr. Deming's work, probably beginning in the early '80s. And part of what Tom had in mind, I believe, by calling it Management By Means, is juxtaposing it with that other management by, right? You know the other one, Andrew, management by?   0:36:33.8 AS: You mean the bad one or the good one, Management By Objective?   0:36:37.8 BB: Or Management By Results. Or Dr. Deming once said, MBIR, Management by Imposition of Results. But what's neat is, and this is what I cover and with my online courses, Tom is really, it's just such insight. Tom believes that treating the means as the ends in the making. So he's saying that the ends are what happen when we focus on the means, which is like, if you focus on the process, you get the result. But no, MBIR, as we focus on the result, we throw the process out the window. And so when I've asked students in one of my classes is, why does Tom Johnson believe that treating the means as an ends in the making is a much surer route to stable and satisfactory financial performance than to continue as most companies do? You ready, Andrew? To chase targets as if the means do not matter. Does that resonate with you, Andrew?   0:37:44.1 AS: Yes. They're tampering.   0:37:46.8 BB: Yeah. I also want to quote, I met Tom in 1997. I'm not sure if this... Actually, this article is online and I'll try to remember to post a link to it. If I forget, our listeners can contact me on LinkedIn and I'll send you a link to find the paper. This is when I first got exposed to Tom. It just blew me away. I still remember there at a Deming conference in 1997, hearing Tom talk. I thought, wow, this is different. So, Tom's paper that I'm referencing is A Different Perspective on Quality, the subtitle, Bringing Management to Life. Can you imagine? “Bringing Management to Life.” And it was in Washington, DC, the 1997 conference. And then Tom says, this is the opening. And so when Tom and his wife would speak at Rocketdyne or other conferences I organized.   0:38:44.0 BB: Tom read from a lectern. So he needed a box to get up there and he read, whereas Elaine, his wife, is all extemporaneous. Both deeply profound, two different styles. So what Tom wrote here is he says, "despite the impression given by my title, Professor of Quality Management, I do not speak to you as a trained or a certified authority on the subject of quality management. I adopted that title more or less casually after giving a presentation to an audience of Oregon business executives just over six years ago. That presentation described how my thinking had changed in the last five years since I co-authored the 1987 book, Relevance Lost, the Rise and Fall of Management Accounting, and the talk which presaged my 1992 book, Relevance Regained." And this is when he... After he wrote, Relevance Lost, he went on the lecture circuit, he met the likes of Peter Scholtes and Brian Joiner, got pulled into the Deming community.   0:39:45.4 BB: And then he wrote this scathing book called Relevance Regained and the subtitle is... I think our audience will love it, From Top-Down Control to Bottom-Up Empowerment. Then he goes on to say, "in that I told how I had come to believe that management accounting, a subject that I had pursued and practiced for over 30 years." Over 30 years, sounds familiar. Then he says, "could no longer provide useful tools for management. I said in essence that instead of managing by results, instead of driving people with quantitative financial targets, it's time for people in business..." And this is 30 years ago, Andrew. "It's time for people in business to shift their attention to how they organize work and how they relate to each other as human beings. I suggested that if companies organize work and build relationships properly, then the results that accountants keep track of will what? Take care of themselves."   0:40:50.8 AS: It's so true, it's so true.   0:40:54.1 BB: Yeah, it sounds so literally Tom was writing that in 1999, 2000. Well, actually no, that was 1997, that was 1997, but the same sentiment.   0:41:03.4 AS: It just makes me think of the diagram that we see and that Deming had about the flow through a business, it's the same thing as of the flow from activity to result.   0:41:20.6 BB: Yes.   0:41:21.9 AS: And when we focus on the result and work backwards, it's a mess from a long-term perspective, but you can get to the result. It's not to say you can't get to the result, but you're not building a system that can replicate that. But when you start with the beginning of that process of how do we set this up right to get to that result, then you have a repeatable process that can deliver value. In other words, you've invested a large amount in the origination of that process that then can produce for a much longer time. Um, I have to mention that the worst part of this whole time that we talk is when I have to tell you that we're almost out of time 'cause there's so much to talk about. So we do need to wrap it up, but, yeah.   0:42:09.3 BB: All right. I got a couple of closing thoughts from Tom and then we'll pick this up in episode 21.   0:42:21.3 AS: Yep.   0:42:22.9 BB: Let me also say, for those who are really... If you really wanna know... I'd say, before you read The New Economics... I'm sorry, before you read Profit Beyond Measure, one is the article I just referenced, “Bringing Quality to Life” is a good start. I'd also encourage our readers to do a search. I do this routinely. It shouldn't be that hard to find, but look for an article written by Art Kleiner, Art as in Arthur, Kleiner, K-L-E-I-N-E-R. And the article is entitled, Measures... The Measures That Matter. I think it might be What Are The Measures That Matter? And that article brilliantly written by Kleiner who I don't think knows all that much about Deming, but he knows a whole lot about Tom Johnson and Robert Kaplan, who together co-authored "Relevance Lost" and then moved apart. And Tom became more and more Deming and Kaplan became more and more non and finally wrote this article.   0:43:35.6 AS: Is this article coming out in 2002, "What Are The Measures That Matter? A 10-year Debate Between Two Feuding Gurus Shed Some Light on a Vexing Business Question?"   0:43:46.4 BB: That's it.   0:43:47.2 AS: There it is and it's on the...   0:43:47.4 BB: And it is riveting.   0:43:50.8 AS: Okay.   0:43:50.8 BB: Absolutely riveting. Is it put out by...   0:43:54.0 AS: PwC, it looks like and it's under strategy...   0:43:58.5 BB: Pricewaterhouse...   0:43:58.8 AS: Yeah, strategy and business.   0:44:00.2 BB: PricewaterhouseCooper? Yeah.   0:44:01.3 AS: Yeah.   0:44:03.1 BB: And 'cause what's in there is Kleiner explaining that what Tom's talking about might take some time. You can go out tomorrow, Andrew, and slash and burn and cut and show instant results. Now what you're not looking at is what are the consequences? And so... But... And then... But Kleiner I think does a brilliant job of juxtaposing and trying to talk about what makes Kaplan's work, the Balanced Scorecard, so popular. Why is Tom so anti that?   0:44:37.9 BB: And to a degree, it could be for some a leap of faith to go over there, but we'll talk about that later. Let me just close with this and this comes from my blog on The Deming Institute about Profit Beyond Measure and I said, "for those who are willing and able to discern the dramatic differences between the prevailing focus of systems that aim to produce better parts with less waste and reductions to non-value-added efforts," that's my poke at Lean and Six Sigma, "and those systems that capitalize on a systemic connection between parts. Tom's book, Profit Beyond Measure, offers abundant food for thought. The difference also represents a shifting from profit as the sole reason for a business to profit as the result of extraordinary attention to working people, a most fitting subtitle to this book."   0:45:35.9 AS: Well, Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for the discussion and for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. If you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to Joy in work" and I hope you are enjoying your work.    

In part 3 of this series, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz talk about the final 5 lessons for data analysis in education. Dive into this discussion to learn more about why data analysis is essential and how to do it right. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. This is episode 23 and we're talking about goal setting through a Deming lens. John, take it away.  0:00:30.8 John Dues: It's good to be back, Andrew. Yeah, in this first episode of this four-part series, we talked about why goal setting is often an act of desperation. And if you remember early on, I sort of proposed those four conditions that organizations should understand about their systems prior to ever setting a goal. Those four were capability, variation, stability, and then by what method are you going to improve your system? And then in the last episode, I introduced the first five lessons of the 10 key lessons for data analysis. And remember, these lessons were set up to avoid what I call these arbitrary and capricious education goals, which are basically unreasonable goals without consideration of those four things, the system capability, variation, and stability, and then not having a method. So, it might be helpful just to recap those first five lessons. I'll just list them out and folks that want to hear the details can listen to the last episode.   0:01:31.8 JD: But lesson one was data have no meaning apart from their context. So, we've got to contextualize the data. Lesson two was we don't manage or control the data. The data is the voice of the process. So, it's sort of, you know, the data over time shows us what's happening and we don't really have control over that data. We do have control under that underlying process. Lesson three was plot the dots for any data that occurs in time order. So, take it out of a two-point comparison or take it out of a spreadsheet and put it on a line chart that shows the data over time. Lesson four was two or three data points are not a trend. So again, get beyond the typical two-point limited comparison this month and last month, this year and last year, this same month, last year, those types of things, this week, last week.   0:02:25.6 JD: And then lesson five was, show enough data in your baseline to illustrate the previous level of variation. So, we want to get a sense of how the data is changing over time and we need a baseline amount of data, whether that's 12 points, 15 points, 20 points, there's sort of different takes on that. But somewhere in that 12-to-20-point range is really the amount of data we want to have in our baseline. So, we understand how it's moving up and down over time sort of naturally. Sort of at the outset of those two episodes, we also talked about centering the process behavior charts, like the ones we viewed in many of our episodes. And we put those in the center because it's a great tool for looking at data over time, just like we've been talking about.   0:03:11.4 JD: And I think when we use this methodology, and when you start to fully grasp the methodology, you start to be able to understand messages that are actually contained in the data. You can differentiate between those actual special events, those special causes, and just those everyday up and downs, what we've called common causes. And in so doing, we can understand the difference between reacting to noise and understanding actual signals of significance in that data. And so, I think that's a sort of a good primer to then get into lessons six through 10.   0:03:51.2 AS: Can't wait.   0:03:53.3 JD: Cool. We'll jump in then.   0:03:56.1 AS: Yeah. I'm just thinking about my goal setting and how much this helps me think about how to improve my goal setting. And I think one of the biggest ones that's missing that we talked about before is by what method. And many people think that they're setting strategy, when in fact, they're just setting stretch targets with nothing under it. And they achieve it by luck or are baffled why they don't achieve it. And then they lash out at their employees.   0:04:31.4 JD: Yeah, there was really... I mean, that goes back to one of those four conditions of setting goal capability. You have to understand how capable your system is before you can set, it's fine to set a stretch goal, but it has to be within the bounds of the system. Otherwise, it's just maybe not an uncertainty, but a mathematical improbability. That's not good. Like you're saying, it's not a good way to operate if you're a worker in that system. So, lesson six then, to continue the lessons.   0:05:06.8 JD: So, lesson six is "the goal of data analysis in schools is not just to look at past results, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to look forward and predict what is likely to occur in the future," right? So that's why centering the process behavior charts is so important, because they allow you to interpret data that takes variation into account, allows you to classify the data into the routine or common cause variation or the exceptional, that's the special cause variation, and allows us to turn our focus to that underlying or the behavior of the underlying system that produced the results. And it's this focus on the system and its processes that's then the basis for working towards continual improvement.   0:06:00.6 AS: And I was just thinking about number six, the goal is to predict what is likely to occur in the future. And I was just thinking, and what's likely to occur in the future is exactly what's happening now, or the trend that's happening, unless we change something in the system, I guess.   0:06:16.4 JD: Yeah. And that's why just setting the stretch goal is often disconnected from any type of reality, because we have this idea that somehow something magical is going to happen in the future that didn't happen in the past. And nothing magical is going to happen unless we are intentional about doing something differently to bring about that change.   0:06:39.5 AS: And that's a great lesson for the listeners and the viewers. It's like, have you been just setting stretch targets and pushing people to achieve these stretch targets? And not really understanding that your role is to understand that you're going to get the same result unless you start to look at how do we improve the method, the system, that type of thing.   0:07:05.0 JD: Yeah. And usually when you have those stretch goals, you've looked at what happened last year, and then you base the stretch goal on last year. But perhaps, you're seeing, for the last three or four years, the data has been steadily decreasing, right? And you can't realize that if you haven't charted that over the last three or four years, hopefully beyond that. So, you have no idea or it could have been trending positively, and you may under shoot your stretch goal because you missed a trend that was already in motion because of something that happened in the past.   0:07:44.8 AS: You made a chart for me, a run chart on my intake for my Valuation Masterclass Bootcamp. And we've been working on our marketing, and I presented it to the team and we talked about that's the capability of our system based upon for me to say, I want 500 students when we've been only getting 50 is just ridiculous. And that helped us all to see that if we are going to go to the next level of where we want to be, we've got to change what we're doing, the method that we're getting there, the system that we're running and what we're operating to get there or else we're going to continue to get this output. And so if the goal is to predict what is likely to occur in the future, if we don't make any changes, it's probably going to continue to be like it is in that control chart.   0:08:42.8 JD: Yeah. And that example is, in a nutshell, the System of Profound Knowledge in action in an organization where you're understanding variation in something that's important to you, enrollment in your course. You're doing that analysis with the team. So, there's the psychological component and you're saying, well, what's our theory of knowledge? So, what's our theory for how we're going to bring about some type of improvement? And so, now you're going to run probably something like a PDSA. And so now you have all those lenses of the System of Profound Knowledge that you're bringing together to work on that problem. And that's all it is really in a nutshell.   0:09:22.2 AS: Yeah. And the solution's not necessarily right there. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. And we've got to iterate. Okay. Should we be doing marketing in-house or should we be doing it out using an outsourced service? What if we improve and increase the volume of our marketing? What effect would that have? What if we decrease the... What if we change to this method or that method? Those are all things that we are in the process of testing. I think the hardest thing in business, in my opinion, with this is to test one thing at a time.   0:09:58.5 JD: Yeah.   0:09:58.7 AS: I just, we I want to test everything.   0:10:00.4 JD: Yeah. Yeah. I read in the Toyota Kata that I think we've talked about before here, which talks about Toyota's improvement process. I read this in the book, I don't know if this is totally always true, but basically they focus on single factor experiments for that reason, even in a place as complex and as full of engineers as Toyota, they largely focus on single factor experiments. They can actually tell what it is that brought about the change. I mean, I'm sure they do other more complicated things. They would have to write a design of experiments and those types of things, but by and large, their improvement process, the Toyota Kata, is focused on single factor experiments for that reason.   0:10:48.1 AS: And what's that movie, the sniper movie where they say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast or something like that, like slow down to speed up. I want to go fast and do all of these tests, but the fact is I'm not learning as much from that. And by slowing down and doing single factor experiment to try to think, how do we influence the future is fascinating.   0:11:20.9 JD: Yeah, absolutely.   0:11:22.4 AS: All right. What about seven?   0:11:23.2 JD: Lesson seven. So "the improvement approach depends on the stability of the system under study," and there's really two parts to this. But what approach am I going to take if the system is producing predictable results and it's performing pretty consistently, it's stable, there's only common cause variation. And then what happens if you have an unpredictable system? So two different approaches, depending on what type of system you're looking at in terms of stability. So you know the one thing to recognize in thinking about something like single factor experiments, it's a waste of time to explain noise or explain common cause variation in this stable system, because there's no simple single root cause for that type of variation. There's thousands or tens of thousands of variables that are impacting almost any metric. And you can't really isolate that down to a single cause.   0:12:17.5 JD: So instead we don't, we don't try to do that in a common cause system that needs improvement. Instead, if the results are unsatisfactory, what we do is work on improvements and changes to the system, right? We don't try to identify a single factor that's the problem. So what we do then is we work to improve a common cause processor system by working on the design of that actual system including inputs, throughputs that are a part of that. And to your point, you sort of have to, based on your content knowledge of that area, or maybe you have to bring in a subject matter expert and you sort of start to think about what's going to make the biggest difference. And then you start testing those things one at a time, basically. That's sort of the approach. And then if you're working in an unpredictable system and that unpredictable system is unpredictable because it has special causes in your data, then it's really a waste of time to try to improve that particular system until it's stable again. And so the way you do that is at that point, there is something so different about the special cause data that you try to identify that single cause or two of those data points. And then when you've identified, you study it, and then you try to remove that specific special cause. And if you've identified the right thing, what happens then is it becomes a stable system at that point, right?   0:13:51.9 AS: I was thinking that it's no sense in trying to race your boat if you've got a hole in it. You got to fix the special cause, the hole, and then focus on, okay, how do we improve the speed of this boat?   0:14:06.5 JD: And the key is recognizing the difference between these two roadmaps towards improvement. And I think in education for sure, there's a lot of confusion, a lot of wasted effort, because there's really no knowledge of this approach to data analysis. And so people do their own things. There's a mismatch between the type of variation that's present and the type of improvement effort that's trying to be undertaken. I think the most typical thing is there's a common cause system, and people think they can identify a single thing to improve. And then they spend a lot of time and money on that thing. And then it doesn't get better over time because it was the wrong approach in the first place.   0:14:55.9 AS: Number eight.   0:14:57.6 JD: Number eight. So, number eight is, "more timely data is better for improvement purposes." So we've talked about state testing data a lot. It's only available once per year. Results often come after students have gone on summer vacation. So, it's not super helpful. So, we really want more frequent data so that we can understand if some type of intervention that we're putting in place has an effect. I think what the most important thing is, the frequency of the data collection needs to be in sync with the improvement context. So, it's not always that you need daily data or weekly data or monthly data, or quarterly data, whatever it is. It's just it has to be in sync with the type of improvement context you're trying to bring about. And no matter what that frequency of collection, the other big thing to keep in mind is don't overreact to any single data point, which is, again, I see that over and over again in my work. I think ultimately the data allows us to understand the variation and the trends within our system, whether that system is stable or unstable, and then what type of improvement effort would be most effective. And, again, in my experience, just those simple things are almost never happening in schools. Probably in most sectors.   0:16:25.9 AS: Can you explain a little bit more about in sync with the improvement process? Like, maybe you have an example of that so people can understand.   0:16:34.2 JD: Well, yeah. So, you mean the frequency of data collection?   0:16:39.0 AS: Yeah. And you're saying, yeah, this idea of like, what would be out of sync?   0:16:44.7 JD: Well, one, you need to... A lot of times what happens is there might be a system in place for collecting some type of data. Let's say, like, attendance. They report attendance, student attendance on the annual school report card. So, you get that attendance rate, but that's like the state test scores. Like, it's not that helpful to get that on the report card after the year has concluded. But the data is actually available to us in our student information system. And so, we could actually pull that in a different frequency and chart it ourselves and not wait on the state testing date or the state attendance report card has attendance...   0:17:27.5 AS: Because attendance is happening on a daily basis.   0:17:31.0 JD: Happening on a daily basis. So, if we wanted to, daily would be pretty frequent, but if we did collect the data daily, we certainly can do that. We could see, that could help us see patterns in data on certain days of the week. That could be something that goes into our theory for why our attendance is lower than we'd want it to. You could do it weekly if the daily collection is too onerous on whoever's being tasked with doing that. I think weekly data pretty quickly, would take you 12 weeks. But in 12 weeks, you have a pretty good baseline of what attendance is looking like across this particular school year. So I think when you're talking about improvement efforts, I think something daily, something weekly, I think that's the target so that you can actually try some interventions along the way. And...   0:18:29.3 AS: And get feedback.   0:18:31.1 JD: And get feedback. Yeah, yeah. And you could also peg it to something that's further out. And you could see over time if those interventions that are impacting more short-term data collection are actually impacting stuff on the longer term as well.   0:18:49.1 AS: And I guess it depends also on what is the priority of this. Let's say that attendance is not a big issue at your particular school. Therefore, we look at it on a monthly basis and we look to see if something's significance happening. But otherwise, we've got to focus over on another idea. And if, if, if attendance becomes an issue, we may go back to daily and say, is it a particular day of the week? Or is it something, what can we learn from that data?   0:19:20.0 JD: Yep, that's exactly right. And then the next step would be in lesson nine, you then, and this is why the charts are so important, then you can clearly label the start date for an intervention directly on the chart. So, what you want to do is, once you've chosen an intervention or a change idea, you clearly mark that in your process behavior chart. I just use a dashed vertical line on the date the intervention is started and also put a simple label that captures the essence of that intervention. So, that's right on the chart. So, I can remember what I tried or started on that particular day. And then that allows the team to easily see, because you're going to continue adding your data points, the stuff that comes after the dotted line, it becomes pretty apparent based on the trends you're seeing in the data, if that intervention is then working, right?   0:20:21.2 JD: If it's attendance, I may try, I do a weekly call to parents to tell them what their individual child's attendance rate is. And then we can see once we started making those weekly calls over the next few weeks, does that seem to be having an impact on attendance rates? And then I can actually see too, we've talked about the patterns in the data, there's certain patterns I'm looking for to see if there's a significant enough change in that pattern to say, yeah, this is a signal that this thing is actually working. So, it's not just because it increased, that attendance rate could go up, but that in and of itself isn't enough. I want to see a signal. And by signal, I mean a specific pattern in the data, a point outside the limits.   0:21:17.3 JD: I want to see eight points in a row in the case of attendance above the central line or I want to see three out of four that are closer to a limit, the upper limit, than they are to that central line. And again, we've talked about this before, those patterns are so mathematically improbable that I can be pretty reasonably assured if you see them that an actual change has occurred in my data. And because I've drawn this dotted line, I can tie the time period of the change back within that dataset to determine if something positive happened after I tried that intervention.   0:21:56.7 AS: It's just, you just think about how many times, how many cycles of improvement and interventions that you can do in a system and how far you will be a year later.   0:22:12.3 JD: Yes, yeah. And "cycles" is exactly the right word because really what you're doing, I didn't mention it here, but really what you were doing at the point you draw that vertical line when you're going to run an intervention, you're going to do that through the PDSA cycle, the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. So that's your experiment where you're testing one thing to see what impact it has on the data. So if I was going to boil continual improvement per Dr. Deming down to two things is, put your data on a process behavior chart, combine it with a PDSA to see how to improve that data. And that's continual improvement in a nutshell, basically, those two tools.   0:22:51.7 AS: Gold, that's gold. All right. Number 10.   0:22:55.3 JD: Last one, lesson 10, "the purpose of data analysis is insight." So this comes from Dr. Donald Wheeler, but he basically just teaches us that the best analysis is the simplest analysis, which provides the needed insight. But what he would say is plot the dots first on a run chart. Once you have enough data, turn it into a process behavior chart. And that's the most straightforward method for understanding how our data is performing over time. And so this approach, I think it's much more intuitive than if we store the data in tables and then the patterns become much more apparent because we're using these time sequence charts. And again, I know I've said this before, but I keep repeating it because I think it's the essence of continual improvement to do those two things. Yeah.   0:23:47.1 AS: And what's the promise of this? If we can implement these 10 points that you've highlighted in relation to goal setting, what do you think is going to change for me? I mean, sometimes I look at what you've outlined and I feel a little bit overwhelmed, like, God, that's a lot of work. I mean, can I just set the freaking goal and people just do it?   0:24:13.2 JD: Yeah. Well, I think, this is, in essence, a better way. I mean, this is really the wrap up here is that, well, one, when you understand the variation in your chart, you actually understand the story, the true story that's being told by your data. And so many people don't understand the true story. They sort of make up, that's too strong, but they don't have the tools to see what's actually happening in their system. So if you really want to see what's happening in your system, this is the way to do it. That's one thing. I think it also... I tried many, many things before I discovered this approach, but I didn't have any way to determine if something I was trying was working or not.   0:25:07.1 JD: I didn't have any way to tie the intervention back to my data. So what most people then do is tell the story that this thing is working if you like it. And if you don't want to do it anymore, you tell the story that it's not working, but none of its actually tied to like scientific thinking where I tie the specific point I try something to my data. So that's another thing. I can actually tell if interventions are working or not or can have a... I always try to use, not use definitive language. Scientifically, I have a much better likelihood of knowing that an intervention is working or not.   0:25:47.7 JD: So I think especially the process behavior chart, I think, and the way of thinking that goes with the chart is probably the single most powerful tool that we can utilize to improve schools. And we can teach this to teachers. We can teach this to administrators. We can teach this to students, can learn how to do this.   0:26:07.1 AS: Yeah. And I think one of the things I was thinking about is start where you have data.   0:26:12.3 JD: Yeah. Start where you have data.   0:26:14.2 AS: Don't feel like you've got to go out there and go through a whole process of collecting all this data and all that. Start where you have data. And even if attendance is not your major issue, let's say, but you had good attendance data, it's a good way to start to learn. And I suspect that you're going to learn a lot as you start to dig deeper into that. And then that feeds into, I wonder if we could get data on this and that to understand better what's happening.   0:26:41.4 JD: There are so many applications, so many applications. I mean, even just today, we were talking about, we get a hundred percent of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch because we have a school-wide lunch or breakfast and lunch program. And so we get reimbursed for the number of meals that are distributed. And sometimes there's a mismatch between the number that are distributed and the number we order just because of attendance and transportation issues and things like that. But the federal government only reimburses us for the meals we actually distribute to kids. And so if we over order, we have to pay out of our general fund for those meals that we don't get reimbursed for. And so, I'm just bringing this up because we were looking at some of that data just today, that mismatch, and even an area as simple as that is ripe for an improvement project.   0:27:40.7 JD: Why is there a mismatch? What is happening? And prior, I would just say, prior to having this mindset, this philosophy, I would say, well, they just need to figure out how to get the numbers closer together. But you actually have to go there, watch what's happening, come up with a theory for why we're ordering more breakfasts and lunches than we're passing out. It could be super, super simple. No one ever told the person distributing the lunches that we get reimbursed this way. And so they didn't know it was a big deal. I don't know that that's the case or not right, that's purely speculation. Or it could be, oh, we want to make sure every kid eats so we significantly over order each day. Well, that's a good mindset, but maybe we could back that off to make sure we never... We're always going to have enough food for kids to eat, but we're also not going to spend lots of extra money paying for lunches that don't get eaten. So there's all different things, even something like that operationally is ripe for improvement project. And the great thing is, is if you can study that problem and figure out how to save that money, which could by the end of the year, you know, be thousands of dollars, you could reallocate that to field trips or class supplies or to books for the library or art supplies, whatever, you know? So that's why I think this methodology is so powerful.   0:29:02.1 AS: Fantastic. That's a great breakdown of these 10 points. So John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion and for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And you can find John's book, Win-Win, W. Edwards Deming, The System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on Amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to joy in work."      

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What does it mean to "commit" to transformation? What does "transformation" mean? In this episode, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz discuss Point 14 of Dr. Deming's 14 Points for Management - with John's interpretations for educators. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. This is episode 20, and we are continuing our discussion about the shift from management myths to principles for transformation of school systems. John, take it away.   0:00:31.1 John Dues: Hey, Andrew. It's good to be back. Yeah, we're on principle 14 today, which is Commit to Transformation. So I'll just start by outlining the principle itself. So Commit to Transformation - "clearly define top management's commitment to continual improvement of quality and its obligation to implement the 14 principles, plan and take action to put everyone in the organization to work to accomplish the transformation. Transformation is everyone's job. Start with education for all and positions of leadership." So, basically, we've been through these 14 principles, and the final one is, put it into action, basically. So I think a good place to start is just remembering or recalling what does Deming mean by transformation? And he's saying transformation is a change in state from one thing to another. So we're going from one thing to something completely new, and there's these 14 principles that help us get us there.   0:01:34.9 JD: And of course, when Deming was talking, he was talking about the prevailing system of management and changing into this new system of management and about this sort of, older version, this prevailing style from 30 years ago, which still is the prevailing style today. He said something that was really interesting. He said, it's a modern invention that cedes competition between people, teams, departments, students, schools, universities. And so when... What he is really saying is that when you transform your organization, you work together as a system. And he is advocating for cooperation and transformation. And I think of course, people are gonna say, yes, absolutely, we need to cooperate. And that's, that's the way that everybody wins. But in reality, I think that's not always what's happening in organizations because I think what you need in order to go about this switch is what Deming called Profound Knowledge.   0:02:41.5 JD: And most people don't have an understanding of, of what that is. So what happens I think is that the prevailing style of management, it's rooted in those management myths we've talked about before we started the principles. And it's sort of this false foundation for your organization. But that's where I think most people, people are. And so part of this commitment is then if we're gonna commit to transformation, there's some things that leaders have to realize, and then there's some steps you have to take if you're gonna sort of go down this path. I think the things that you have to realize as a leader, and these are things that are true for me as I continue this process and my organization is number one, there's gonna be a struggle. There's gonna be this struggle over every one of the 14 principles because it's so different from what we're doing today.   0:03:39.1 JD: I think another thing we're gonna have to realize is that this can't be one or two people at your organization. The entire leadership structure at your organization, it's gonna have to be educated in this new way of thinking, and then you're gonna have to bring along the entire organization. And this can be a challenge because if you are the person doing this at your organization, you very well may be fairly new to this new way of thinking, this new philosophy yourself, unless you've brought in someone externally to help you through this. And even if you do that probably for a good portion of the time, you're gonna have to be leading this before you may be feeling like an expert yourself. And that was definitely true in my case. But I think the emphasis in this initial introduction is that you gotta get that system's view and you have to help people understand the theory of variation.   0:04:43.0 JD: So that has to be sort of initial part of that introduction. And then of course, you have to take your organizational context into account and so how this sort of rolls out or plays out, it's certainly gonna vary by size of organization, by organizational type. But the good thing is, is regardless of size or type of organization, industry, sector, whatever, Dr. Deming offered several steps to get started in this process. So I think maybe as a start to how you commit to the transformation, if you wanna go down this route, it might be helpful to sort of outline those steps first.   0:05:24.8 AS: Definitely. And it just, the idea of everybody, being committed to the transformation, like this isn't something where you can say, well, maintenance department doesn't wanna do it. [chuckle]   0:05:36.4 JD: Right.   0:05:38.3 AS: Or the third grade teachers don't wanna do it, but the sixth grade do. So that's... Of course things can start in kind of piecemeal as they they go, but it is a true transformation. The other thing that's interesting is if you have a situation where you have been through a transformation as a unit at a school or as a company, it's also possible that a new person could come in and destroy that transformation real fast. And I have an example of a company that I've experience with where they had implemented the Deming principles to an extreme level, and the CEO resigned eventually. He was older, a new one came in and he said, I'm not in that school, I'm not in that camp. I got a new idea. I got a different idea. And it went right back to the prevailing system of management.   0:06:35.9 JD: Wow. That's really interesting. On the first point, I think, you're not necessarily gonna get all the departments or everybody at once. Obviously it's gonna be a process. On the second point, I think that actually is a good segue into step one because basically what he says, and I've translate this for education environment or education audience, but he basically says the school board and the superintendent have to study the 14 principles. Understand them, agree on a strategic direction, and then make a deliberate decision to adopt and implement the new philosophy, so why bring this up now? As I follow on to your comment there is that it seems to me that well, assuming that this was a company that had a board, then what that board should have done is include something about the System of Profound Knowledge and the job description for the new CEO. That's interesting that they didn't make that a point of emphasis.   0:07:41.5 AS: I think what's fascinating to me about it is that I think on the one hand, cooperation and working together and not living in an environment of fear is kind of our normal state, I would argue, but society just pushes us in so many different ways, that all of a sudden you find yourself in a very different state. And another example of that is how KPIs have taken Thailand in particular by storm, and now all of a sudden you have people who have been very cooperative in the way that they work together, all of a sudden pitted against each other, and it's so painful for them, because it's not the way that they naturally operate.   0:08:33.5 JD: Interesting.   0:08:35.3 AS: And so yeah, it's just... I think you gotta work. And I guess the thing you're saying about the board is that you really gotta work to make sure that this is something precious, and you could lose it in a blink of an eye if you don't...   0:08:52.4 JD: Yeah, yeah, and I'm not hiring a CEO obviously, but I have started including... I don't use System of Profound Knowledge, I don't use that terminology when I write job descriptions for people on my team, but what I do say is, what we're looking for is someone that can think in systems, understand variation and data, run small experiments to find out what works and do that with sort of like while working with people in a cooperative fashion, so I've sort of incorporated the four elements of the System of Profound Knowledge in the job descriptions for people that I'm hiring on my team, so then when I actually do use System of Profound Knowledge, describe the elements once they're on board, it's not a surprise 'cause it was a part of that hiring process. And part of that, even the job description itself, but step one basically is so that, you know, if you do have it at your organization, it includes both board and sort of the senior leadership being bought into that philosophy and that's not a guarantee, but at least if both components have that then if that CEO moves on, maybe it's more likely to continue on in your organization.   0:10:10.4 JD: That's step one. Step two is interesting, Deming basically said that the board and the senior leader or the school board and the superintendent in my case, must feel he said a "burning satisfaction", sorry, "burning dissatisfaction" with past procedures and a strong desire to transform their management approach, so it's almost like you almost have to be hitting your head against the wall, you have to be looking for something, because what he goes on to say is that you have to have the courage to break with tradition, even to the point of exile among peers, as you're going through this transformation process, because from an outsider looking in, if you're adopting the Deming philosophy, much of the stuff is gonna look so different that people are gonna be asking you, what exactly are you doing? And this has happened repeatedly. Not, not, I don't think that to that extent that I've been exiled, but for sure people will be like, well, I don't understand why you're just not setting a goal, just tell people what the goal is and then let them get out of the way and let them achieve it. That's not the approach with the Deming philosophy. So you have to...   0:11:33.2 JD: Again, for me, it wasn't exile, but constant pushback, questioning, why are you saying this, why are you operating in this way? I don't get it, why don't we just tell departments what their goals are and let them all meet them, those types of things, the typical way of operating, and it does take a lot of time and energy to explain that, but that's a part of the process.   0:11:55.1 AS: It reminds me of working with alcoholics and drug addicts, generally, they don't turn around until they've hit a bottom.   0:12:04.8 JD: Yeah. Yeah.   [overlapping conversation]   0:12:05.4 AS: And they have a burning desire.   0:12:05.6 JD: Learning to satisfaction. I think that's right, and I think from the standpoint of someone that's really motivated to look for something new, look for a different way of doing things, that's not all together a bad thing, that they've sort of hit rock bottom. Step three is, again, it seems common-sensical. But even here, even as I was going through this, it was sort of a reminder of a number of things that I need to do on a regular basis, and one of the things he said in step three is that once that sort of senior leadership team, the board, the superintendent, whatever that make up is that your organization is that then you have to go out and explain, whether it's through community meetings or seminars or whatever to sort of a critical mass school system staff, he said, students, parents, why you're going on this transformation, why you're... This change is necessary. And then actually educating your people across the organization, what is this philosophy, what is the System of Profound Knowledge? What are the 14 principles? What are the typical ways that we work? Why are those management myths don't work.   0:13:36.4 JD: You gotta go out and do all of these things. It's gonna be a completely new language, a completely new operating for most people, and it has to be a part of the process, bringing people along and this... I think this isn't an overnight process, obviously. Deming said no instant pudding. He generally said, I think transformation was a five to 10 year process, depending on the size of your organization, but I've definitely found that to be true. There's fits and starts, there are some things that you seem to be able to sort of put in place pretty quickly, and then there's other things where there's a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, and you gotta bring people along, people turn over, you gotta re-educate those types of things. So it's a process. It's definitely a process.   0:14:27.4 AS: I was thinking about. I can't remember whether I heard Dr. Deming said that or whether it's somebody, or I read it or somebody told me, but that somebody asked him, "How long has this transformation take?" And he said, "Well, it can take as long as 10 years or as short as 10 years."   0:14:49.8 JD: [laughter] Yeah, so no matter what. It's a significant amount of time. There's no doubt about it. Step four, he basically says that every job and every activity within the school system or your organization is a part of this process that can be improved. And he talks about using flow diagrams for important processes within your organization so that people can see that this is about optimizing that whole system, and not the individual stages. But he really wanted people to see visually, even if it's just a simple sort of flow diagram, how one stage connects to other stages for us, maybe it's the teaching and learning process going from kindergarten to first to second to third grade.   0:15:37.3 JD: That again, seems obvious that that should be how the system works, what I think is less typical and common is actually doing activities from a systems thinking lens, where you are making sure people understand that the kindergarten teacher is also serving the first grade teaching team in addition to the students and families in their classroom and simple things like we have two elementary schools, two middle schools, do the middle school principals leave their school at some point and go to the elementary schools on their side of town and introduce themselves to the fifth graders, so things as simple as that is what I'm talking about.   0:16:28.8 JD: There are lots of other things. For sure. But how often does that happen? In some places, it may be fairly typical, in other places, it's not happening at all, but in the case, even where it's happening, do you explain why it is that you're doing this activity. Are people making that connection that they're part of a bigger system. I once consulted at a very small rural school district here in Ohio, and when we talked about systems, they just had two buildings, they had a sort of an elementary building and then a seven through twelve building. And talking to people, they said, I've never been to the high school - an elementary teacher, I've never been to the high school. And so people may say, Well, that seems strange. But when you were in the school system, it is very difficult sometimes to get out, so you actually have to make it... The leader has, or the leaders have to facilitate this, bring this about... There has to be some coordination of efforts, so that's step four. I think step five is you have to teach and then utilize the Plan-Do-Study Act cycle. You have to use it as a procedure to learn how to improve the organization's processes.   0:17:48.1 JD: I think that we've talked to your... And the Deming community is familiar with the Plan-Do-Study Act cycle, PDSA cycle, but most people aren't. Most people don't have this... Some people might call it sort of like a scientific thinking approach to testing ideas and see if they work, but most people don't approach change like that. They just try something, there's no system for collecting data, a lot of times it's just sort of a mass implementation, there's no process for testing on a small scale, seeing if it works, getting feedback on a short time frame, like a week or two weeks or three weeks, and then trying that next test. So that's, that's in terms of putting the Deming philosophy into action, I think that's a critical part using the PDSA cycle.   0:18:44.0 AS: Yeah, I'm just thinking about my Valuation Masterclass Bootcamp, and we're just about to start our round 13. And so having taught it 12 times before, but part of our PDSA, part of our process of understanding the cycle is that, at the end of every bootcamp, every single student gives us their recommendations for improvement. And we do it through a survey where they're all excited at that moment in time, because they're at the end of the process, but they've gotta go through the survey. And they give some great ideas, and then we capture all that into a document, and then we go through it and we see there's some ideas that just seem like obvious we should have implemented that a long time ago, or we knew. And then, so we say, okay, how do we implement this? But then there's others that are also a question. Right now, one of the ideas is to do one of our class sessions per week as a live session.   0:19:52.4 AS: And it's the feedback session where students get feedback, and in that case, people from outside can watch it. And it has some benefits. There's a marketing angle to it for us, but also, there is the excitement of showcasing your work and all that. But on the other hand, it could be terrifying and it could be that it doesn't do what we think. So in the end, we asked what is it that we think we would want from this as an outcome? And then we said, why don't we just try it one night in week four? And so we've set up that we're gonna do it on one night, we're gonna prep them ahead of time, and we're gonna see how it goes. And if it produces the effect that we want, which is, we think it's gonna up the intensity in, all of that, that it's gonna work. But if not, then we'll abandon it. And so that's a little bit of our little PDSA thinking on how do we test out an idea and see the result of it?   0:21:00.5 JD: Yeah, I love that. I love that because it's not... We're gonna just do this new thing in our course. We got this feedback, we're gonna just do it. We're gonna actually test it on a very short cycle, one session and get the feedback back right away to see if this works. And if it does, we're gonna do more of it. And what's likely gonna happen is you're probably gonna learn something, and you're probably gonna have to sort of change the approach a little bit, and you're gonna do it again and again and again until this is... Assuming the feedback is positive, then you'll do more and more of it. And, you know, if it doesn't work, then you'll learn that in a very quick, easy fashion and you'll know not to do, you know, more of that thing in your course.   0:21:44.2 JD: So I think that's the exact type of thinking that Deming was trying to get us to do, to improve our organizations, versus this sort of plan, plan, plan. We're planning these grand changes, then we put them in place, and then they don't work out like we thought, and then all of a sudden, we've had this significant investment in time and/or resources and sunk costs. And maybe we even keep doing it because we feel like we can't make a change at that point. So that sounds...   0:22:12.1 AS: Iterate, iterate.   0:22:12.2 JD: Iterate. Yep. Small, small, small test of change. So that was step five is use the PDSA cycle. Step six I really love, he says, Deming says, "Transformation is everyone's job." So no matter who you are in the school system, student, staff member, parent, you have to play a role in this transformation. And one of the ways that this can be set up is that you have these cross-functional teams on which parents, students staff members from various departments can be set up to work together on a problem. And one thing that we're doing right now, we have a new position in our network called Network Medical Coordinator. We're very fortunate. We actually have a pediatrician that's on staff, and one of the projects she's working on is critical care. So basically, when students require some type of critical care at school for something like, let's say diabetes, that's not something schools are used to sort of dealing with or maybe don't typically have the internal expertise to deal with. And in this case, there's a team of people figuring out the best approaches for various critical care areas.   0:23:35.3 JD: And this includes the Network Medical Coordinator. It includes one of the operations managers at one of the schools. It includes a parent and some outside partners, a pediatrician from a local hospital, for example. So you have this cross-functional team that's coming together in a way that's not super typical in a school system, but for a very important reason, it includes these various functional areas. And I think the outcome, what comes out of this project is gonna be better because it's not just the doctor saying, this is what we're gonna do. There's the parent, there's the ops manager that understands like how the office works, and how kids come to the office to get this care and things of that nature. And so you have this sort of cross-functional team working in a way that's gonna improve our system. So transformation is everyone's job, putting everybody to work for the transformation is step six. And there's various ways to do that a cross-functional team is one of those areas or one of those ways of bringing that to fruition.   0:24:37.1 JD: And then step seven is interesting. He basically said to deliberately construct your system for quality with certain percentages of staff understanding continual improvement at different levels. And sort of the way we've characterized that is sort of everybody, the goal is to have everybody have sort of like a basic level understanding of continual improvement. And by basic level, everybody knows what a run chart is in our network. The goal was, so everybody can sort of put one of those together. That's a pretty simple chart. Everybody could put together a process map to understand how do we map out, how a process unfolds at one of our schools. So everybody sort of gets that basic level of understanding.   0:25:28.8 JD: And then there's this sort of next level, we call it intermediate level understanding. And basically, this centerpiece of this level of understanding is, this is maybe 25% or 30% of the people really understand the process behavior chart. They really understand how to construct a chart, interpret a chart, and understand data over time and how to use that as an improvement tool. And then at the advanced level, that's something we're still working toward. Maybe you have one or two people. We have about 120 staff members. We have one or two people that have an advanced level of understanding. And so an example there would be, someone knows how to run design of experiments, basically something you may use on a limited basis outside of like an engineering sort of setting. But it would be good to have some advanced understanding. But I think the biggest bang for the buck is at those first two, that everybody has a basic level understanding of certain tools and techniques. And then you have this intermediate group that really has an understanding of how to use the process behavior chart to drive change and bring about improvement in your organization. Those are sort of the seven steps. So sort of concrete advice on how to bring the 14 principles to life.   0:26:53.1 AS: How would you... We've gone through so much stuff in this series. How would you wrap it up? How would you... I guess the first thing is like, what is the core takeaways? And the second thing is like, what would be your advice to the people who've made it to the end of this, who are by this time in their own process of transformation at various stages. So maybe the sum up of kind of what's the core concepts you want people to know? And then the second thing is, how would you advise people to continue their journey?   0:27:29.4 JD: Yeah. I mean, I think, just like, I think step one was this does require study. But what I found is, reading the 14 principles is really helpful after you read about the System of Profound Knowledge, because the 14 principles are sort of a logical extension of the System of Profound Knowledge, and give you a little bit more sort of concrete sort of...it's not a list of do's and don'ts, it's not a recipe, but it's some concrete stuff that you can start to understand, okay, and this is how you actually put the System of Profound Knowledge into action. I think it also again, not a recipe, but the 14 principles do paint a picture for what a healthy work environment looks like. So I think that's really helpful to understand those things. They're not a checklist, they're not... The 14 principles aren't completed in sequence. Rather, they're this interdependent mutually supporting sort of set of guiding principles for system leaders that do help make that transition to the Deming philosophy a bit more concrete.   0:28:52.5 AS: And so for someone who's on their journey, they've been following this. What words of encouragement or words of wisdom would you provide for them?   0:29:11.4 JD: Yeah. It's like a two-parter. There's like, I just sort of reiterated, the study is important. This takes study. You're gonna have to dedicate time to this. You're gonna have to commit to understanding this first yourself, and then starting to sort of dip your toes in the water in terms of talking about this approach with other systems leaders in your organization. And that's sort of the long term play. On the short term, there are things you can do just to start to put the System of Profound Knowledge into action. And I think to me, that's also a good way to learn that doesn't take years and years. And I've said it before, but I think pick one thing that you wanna improve, let's say that thing is attendance rates in your classroom. And just start plotting those rates on a line chart over time. Just see what happens. Plot it over two weeks.   0:30:13.3 JD: So two school weeks is 10 days. Look at those points over the course of two weeks, and start thinking about what you learn when you see that pattern of your data, the ups and downs. Anybody can do that. Anybody can make a simple line chart. And for two weeks, just jot down, okay, on day one, 94% of the kids in my class came to class that day. On day two, it was 91%. On day three, it was 95%. I can start looking at that data over time. And then at the point where you've gathered that baseline, simply draw a vertical line and say, I'm gonna try something to improve this problem. I'm gonna plan it, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna study what happens when I try this one small change, and then I'm gonna decide on the next thing to do, and I'm gonna do this with the students in my class. I think that's a way to put, basically combining that data over time with this small change, what I call a PDSA cycle, basically an experiment, that's the System of Profound Knowledge in a nutshell. And I think anybody can do that. And I think that both the long-term study and putting some of this into action right away are both sort of important ways that people can continue on this journey.   0:31:40.3 AS: I'll, I'll end on with little story. When I was 20 something, maybe 23, my grandfather passed away and my father and I, and the family went to the funeral, and it was my father's father. And we were in the car driving there, and I was sitting in the front seat with my father. By this time, my father and I had had, begun to have a really good relationship, a deep relationship. And I asked my father, "Dad, why is it that I haven't seen you cry when your dad died?" And he said, "I cried 30, 40 years ago when I lost him." And what he was explaining to me was something he never told me. And that was, that his father treated him in a lesser way. He just didn't pay attention to him. He didn't give him time. My grandfather was kind of a famous guy in the world of architecture and history, and I don't think that he disliked my father, his son. I think he just was so busy, he just didn't give time to him and he didn't really show that he cared.   0:32:56.1 JD: Interesting.   0:32:57.5 AS: And what I respect the most about my father was that, he made a conscious decision not to treat his children that way. He married a woman who believed that you don't treat people that way, but he also made a conscious decision, and it took effort. And it wasn't until as we started getting older that the fruits of that effort started to pay off. But I can say that my dad created a trusting environment. And when my dad was close to his death, I asked him, what was your biggest proudest moment in life? And he could have said my best golf game I ever did which he was, he was almost a professional golfer or the great accomplishments, he had in work and life and whatever. And he just looked at me and said, "I created a trusting family."   0:34:00.4 AS: And I think about when you're going into this world of Deming, you're going into a world of chaos, of grading and scoring people, and blaming and all of this crap that goes on in schools and in businesses. And Deming is providing us a way to think differently and provide a more of an environment that drives out fear and sees the potential of humans. And funny enough, you're gonna have to work hard to create that environment. And you're also gonna have to work hard to protect that environment.   0:34:37.5 JD: Yeah.   0:34:39.4 AS: And my dad was an example of somebody where I learned that you can do it, and you can change. And so that's my words of inspiration for everybody listening. You can make a major change and make it a lasting change.   0:34:54.5 JD: Yeah, that sounds like transformation. It sounds like he had the psychology component down too. He sounds like an incredible guy.   0:35:00.9 AS: Yeah. So, John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you for taking this time to go through all of the stuff that we've been through over this time that comes from your book and your work, and your experience. It's very valuable. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey, and you can find John's book Win-Win, W Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. People are entitled to joy in work.

In this episode, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz talk about where and how to start using your new knowledge when you're learning Deming.  TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.1 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today in episode 15 is Start Where You Are. Bill, take it away.   0:00:25.0 Bill Bellows: Thank you, Andrew. And for our audience, you may notice there's a different background. This is not a green screen. This is actually a bedroom at my in-laws in upstate New York. Hey, Andrew, I've been listening to some of the podcasts, and I've collected some data on each of them. Would you like to see it?   0:00:53.0 AS: Yeah, definitely.   0:00:54.2 BB: I've got a control chart, I've got a control chart for each of the 14 sessions for how many times I say, holy cow.   0:01:02.9 AS: Holy moly.   0:01:04.4 BB: In each episode. Yeah, and the process is stable. [laughter] So I say holy cow, I think the average is 2.2, and the upper control limit is... I'm just kidding.   0:01:25.4 AS: You're a sick man.   0:01:27.7 BB: But I think outside of this podcast, I don't know if I use that expression. And I don't know where it comes from, I just, it must be...   0:01:37.7 AS: Did you grow up around cows? You said you're near where you grew up.   0:01:44.4 BB: Yeah, I am staying at my wife's sister's place. And my wife's father, when I met her, had cows in his backyard. And we used to chase the cows. When they got out, we would chase them. And let me tell you, they move fast. [laughter] And I came down several times, severe cases of poison ivy, trying to herd this one cow that was always escaping. And I thought, oh, I'll tell my father, let me go out and I can scare this cow back. Now, no the cow got the best of me. I got covered with mud and went home with poison ivy. Those things, they move fast. So that's my only personal experience with cows. [laughter]   0:02:33.5 AS: Did the cows ever go to a nearby church?   0:02:38.9 BB: No.   0:02:39.2 AS: To become holy.   0:02:40.1 BB: That's a good point? I don't... Yeah, how do those words tie together? I don't know.   0:02:43.4 AS: I don't know.   0:02:45.4 BB: I have to go find out who I got that from. So what I thought we'd talk about today is this, Start Where You Are, Start Where You Are. And first share where I... One context for that expression was the first time I saw Russ Ackoff speak, well, first where I met Russ. I had seen him speak before at a Deming conference, but I didn't get a chance to talk with him. But I saw him a few years later, and he was doing a one-day program in Los Angeles as part of a management series that he would do around the country. And there are about, I don't know, 150 people in the room, 25-30 from across Boeing sites in Southern California that I had invited. And at the end of the day, with about an hour to go, Russ says, okay, I'm going to give you a break. I'm going to give you time to formulate some questions and we'll spend the last hour discussing wherever you want to go. Well, I took the time to go up to Russ and ask him a couple of questions. I had met him earlier in the day. He knew that most people in the audience were there from across Boeing and that I had arranged them.   0:04:06.3 BB: And so I had a chance to talk with him. So I went up and said, I said I've got two questions for you that are not relevant to the audience, but I'd like to ask you one-on-one. He said, sure, go ahead. Well, no, I said knowing that you've known Dr. Deming for, since the early '50s, I said, over that period of time, what do you think he would say he learned from you that would stand out? And vice versa, what did you learn from him over those years that you would say stands out? And he looks at me and he says, well, I don't, I don't know what he learned from me. Then he says, then he answers the question and he says, he says, I think Ed, and he liked to say Ed, 'cause he liked to brag that, yeah, everybody calls him Dr. Deming. I call him Ed. I've known him since 1950.   0:05:05.2 BB: But Russ, by the comparison, if I ever introduced him to you as Dr. Ackoff, he would say, Andrew, call me Russ. So he says, relative to what he learned, what Dr. Deming learned from him, first he says, "well, I don't know what he learned from me. But I think his understanding of systems is very implicit and I helped him develop a better explicit understanding." And I think that makes a lot of sense. I think Dr. Deming's understanding of systems is a lot of what he talks about in The New Economics is what he learned from Russ. It's a very, I think you know when Dr. Deming shared the Production as a Viewed as a System that flow diagram in 1950, he always talks about systems, what comes around, goes around. But Russ was a master at systems from an academic perspective, and that was not Dr. Deming's forte. Now, when it comes to variation, that was Dr. Deming's academic forte. And that's where I would find Russ's understanding of variation, I would find to be very implicit, whereas Deming's was explicit. But anyway, he said he thought it gave him a better understanding of systems, that it was very implicit, very intuitive, and it helped him develop a better, a more academic sense of it. So I said, okay, so what did he learn... What did you learn from him? And he says, "well, I never gave that much thought to the whole quality movement.”   0:06:38.7 BB: “But he... I got a better, a warmer feeling of it." Russ would talk about quality of work life, and there's parallels with what Russ has talks about quality of work life that resemble Dr. Deming's work very well. And I'll give you one short story which ties in well with the Deming philosophy. Russ says he was at an Alcoa plant once upon a time, and he happened to be there on a day in which two workers were honored on stage in front of a bunch of coworkers with an award. Now, we both know what Dr. Deming thinks about giving people awards. So, but the fun part of the story is, Russ says he went up to these two guys afterwards, after they came down off the stage and he says, hey. And he says, and Russ was so precise with language. I mean, he walks up to these two guys and he says, ready Andrew? He says to them, I caught them at their point of maximum puffery. I mean, have you ever heard anyone use the word puffery...   0:07:56.7 AS: No.   0:07:57.1 BB: In a sentence? So he says, I walk up to these two guys and I said, I caught them at their point of maximum puffy. Right? And then he punctures them with the following question. "For how long have you two known about that idea that you were awarded for?" And they looked down at their feet and he said, "Come on, for, for how long have you had that idea before you shared it with management?" And they said, "20 years." And then Russ says, why did you wait so long to share it? And Russ says, he says to him, "Those sons of bitches never asked."   0:08:51.8 BB: And so, and Russ would talk about that as a quality of work life issue. Now, I've heard him tell that story many times, and I once asked him, I said, so what was the idea they came up with? And he said they would take these four foot wide rolls of aluminum foil off a machine, and these are the types of rolls that get used to make aluminum cans. And the roll may be, you know, so it's four foot tall. It's a, it could be easily a foot in outer diameter. And he said when they, when they're taken off a machine, they stand them on the concrete floor. And then to move them, the workers would tilt them back a little bit and then roll them.   0:09:43.9 AS: Which damages...   0:09:47.0 BB: The edge.   0:09:47.7 AS: Yeah.   0:09:47.8 BB: Exactly. So their idea was to, instead of putting them on a the concrete floor, to put them on a piece of plywood. So, what Russ saw was, which very much resembles a... The prevailing system of management where you're gonna wait 20 years before somebody asks you a question, until there's a program, until there's an award, then I'll come forward. All right, so let's go back to the audience. So I went up and asked Russ those questions, and now he is fielding questions from the audience. And one question really struck me and he says, Dr. Deming, not Dr. Deming, the guy says, "Dr. Ackoff," he said, "what you're talking about all day makes a lot of sense. And most organizations have little understanding of it, where you're just talking about, you know, managing interactions, the system, whatnot." He says, "but don't we have to wait for senior management to get on board before we do something with it?   0:10:54.2 BB: Don't we have to wait?" Right. And I'm listening to this, and I don't know what Russ is gonna say, but I'm hearing where the guy's coming from. And Russ turns right at him and he says, "Andrew, John, Sally, you have to start where you are." And I told him later, I said, I could've run up and given him a big hug, because if you're gonna sit back and wait for your management to get on board, you know how long that's gonna take? And so I just love that perspective of starting where you are. Now, let's flip to Dr. Deming, and a great quote that I like to use with students and clients with his work is "The smaller the system, the easier to manage. The bigger the system, the more complicated, but the more opportunities." Right? Now we'll go back to Russ.   0:11:54.0 BB: Russ would say, if you're a school teacher, like our daughter's an eighth grade teacher, start in your classroom. Why? Because you're not gonna start at the elementary school level or the junior high's, that's bigger than you. You're not gonna smart start smaller than that because then that's minimizing what your impact could be, but start where you are and then expand. Now, what that also means is it may be that when you start where you are, as you expand the size of the system, you might need to go back and change what you did now that you're looking at a bigger system.   0:12:37.8 BB: And so that's a great likelihood that what is optimum for you in the classroom may not be optimum when you're starting to think about the elementary school. But even if you start at the elementary school, what is optimum may not be optimum if you have the school district. So there's, no matter where you start, there needs to be an appreciation that in hindsight, what you did before may not be what's best for the bigger system. And the same thing applies when you're talking about integration. You know, Dr. Taguchi's loss function and the ideal value of a given characteristic, well, what I tell people is the ideal value depends upon the size of the system. And so if I'm designing two things to come together and I'm looking at the clearance between them, well, there's a clearance that makes it easy for these two things to come together if you're Andrew doing assembly. But let's say downstream of you is somebody who's using that product, you know, where that clearance is important, so the clearance that makes it easy to go together may not be the clearance that improves the functionality.   0:14:00.2 BB: And that will always be the case that you, that what is optimum where you are, may not be optimum when you expand the size of the system. So you have a few choices. One is, don't do anything. You know, for fear of making it worse, do nothing. Or, run a small scale experiment, use the PDSA model, try some things. But, that is still not a guarantee. 'Cause that small scale experiment still could be with me in my classroom and I run that experiment for a month, two months, three months.   0:14:44.4 BB: So even if I use that model, I can't know everything. And that's the... I mean, those are the complications of viewing things as a system, is to know that the system is not closed, it's open. I met a professor years ago at a conference and he had a model in his presentation that was very much a closed system. You know, they're working within this model, looking at these factors and these factors and these factors. And he went up after us. And I said, yeah, there's factors outside of that system. And he says, "Well, yeah, but we're just looking at this in scope." I said, "You have to frame it to a given size, but you know there's always the possibility that what's outside [chuckle] that you're not including, could haunt you for some time to come." And I didn't get the impression... I mean, it was almost like in engineering we talk about a free body diagram where you take whatever is your list you're looking at and you draw a line around it and you say, "That's the system I'm analyzing."   0:15:58.1 BB: But there's always a system which is bigger than that. And then again, bigger. So no matter where you start, again, and I look at the options are, if you're fearful of not including everything, well, then you're gonna do nothing. And that's easily what Deming and Ackoff were not saying. What they're saying is start where you are. Run experiments. Now, what I expect to be the beauty of a Deming-based organization, a "we" organization, is flexibility.   0:16:29.9 BB: And the flexibility is when things don't go as planned and we learn something, that we have the ability to reflect, note what we've learned, share it with as many people that we think could... would benefit from that. Get back on the horse and try again. I've worked with groups who were quite willing to do that. I worked with groups that were quite... They wouldn't get back on the horse. We were running some experiments dealing with hole machining of some small drills, you know, like on the order of a 16th of an inch, very small. And the experiment was, let's say eight... Seven different factors at two values each, eight experiments. And I don't know, they might've been machining in each experiment, 10 holes, say. And I wanted them to measure diameter of the top and the bottom of each hole, something like that.   0:17:29.3 BB: And I get the data prior to meeting with them. They sent me the data and I had enough experience running fractional factorial experimentation using Doctor Taguchi's ideas that upon first blush looking at the data, I either get a warm feeling or I get a queasy feeling. So in this case, I get a queasy feeling and there's... I'm looking at the data and immediately I knew this is... But I didn't know why. I just knew that, I'm not... And I'm wondering how am I gonna say this to them in the meeting? 'cause they're all excited. For a couple of them it wasn't their first study; they had done this before with great success. So I'm in the meeting and I'm listening and then one of them says, you know, in the experiment we're looking at starting each experiment with a new drill. And the experiments we're looking at different speeds of the drill, different cutting fluids, different parameters associated with machining these holes. And one of them says, they didn't... In hindsight, they didn't use a brand new drill for each experiment. So now I'm thinking, okay, say some more.   0:18:50.0 BB: Well, the drills we used in the experiment had all been used before and were resharpened to be like new, I mean, not new, but like new. And I said, "So say more." And then he said, "Well, when they looked at them under the microscope, the very tip of the drill was not in the center of the drill." 'Cause if you look at a drill, there's a cutting edge on the very top, you can say that near the left side or the right side. And those two cutting edges weren't the same length. So when the drill is cutting, it's not... The hole is not gonna be round, it's gonna have an oblong... So now I'm thinking, kind of explains the data. So he says, one of them say, "Can we salvage the data?"   0:19:45.3 BB: I said, no. And they said, why not? I said, because the assumption we had was that that the drills were reasonably the same. I mean, of course, even eight brand new drills are not identical, but now what you're telling me is the biggest source of variation is in the drills that we thought were the same. And that is wiping out the variation that we introduced. That's the issue, is that the signal coming from the drills that we didn't ask for is bigger than what we asked for. "So you mean we have to run all the experiments again?"   0:20:26.9 BB: And now they're, and I said, well, let me ask you this. So here's the good news. The good news is we didn't spend more time than we did on this experiment. That's the good news. I said, the good news is, we now know that the sharpening process needs to be relooked at. And as it turned out, probably the biggest thing we learned in the experiment, was that it ain't worth resharpening the drills. At that size, throw them away. But what I was hoping is that they would get back on the horse and go back to what we originally planned to do with eight brand new drills. It never happened. But we learned something, but what we learned is not what we had planned to learn. And that gets me to what I would tell people, is if you don't look, you won't find. But then you have to be willing to take the existing system and what is...   0:21:39.3 BB: Do anything, but that just means it stays the way... So if you don't look, you won't find. And if you do look, there's no guarantee. So that was a situation where I was very bummed. And every time, I mean, what I, one of the things I learned early on was preparing management and the team for such situations.   0:22:02.6 BB: That everybody was expecting, you know, a grand slam every single time. I said, no, that's not the way it works. In the real world, you try, you fail, you try, you fail, you learn, hey, you learn what we did here is that the sharpening process doesn't make sense. Had another experiment where, and I don't know which is, which was the bigger disappointment, but in the other one, there were 18 experiments with a lot of hard work, oh my God, and incredible precision as to how each of 1080 holes would be machines. So there were 1080 holes in a ring that was about eight feet in diameter. So there are holes about three tenths of an inch in this ring. The holes were all numbered one through 1080. Every hole had a different recipe. Somehow, the machinist wasn't informed of that.   0:23:08.5 BB: And the manufacturing engineer went to a meeting and he came back only to find out that the instructions, so machinists didn't know. And I said, "So, so what'd you learn?" He said "I learned not to go away to a meeting." So these things happen. Another thing I say in terms of starting where you are, my boss at one time knew I was involved in half a dozen to a dozen different Taguchi studies. And he calls me in one day and he says, "So how many studies are you working on?" I said, half a dozen to a dozen. He said, "Which of them is gonna have the biggest improvement?"   0:23:55.8 BB: So like the biggest... So I said, "So you mean like the biggest percent gain?" He says, "Yeah, which one's gonna have the biggest percent gain?" I said, "I guarantee you that we'll be smarter about everyone after we're done, I guarantee you that." He says, "But which one's gonna have the biggest percent improvement?"   0:24:17.2 BB: I looked straight at him, I said, if I knew the answer to that question, would I be working here? I'd be doing what you do, Andrew, I mean, financial forecasting. But he's like, "Well, don't give me that." I said, "I don't know which is gonna have the biggest gain, but I know we're going to be smarter. And I know all the things we try that don't have an improvement, we're smarter about it." But I said, "if you don't look, you won't try." So you have to start where you are. Another thing I want to point out is, and I wrote an article about this for the LEAN Management Journal, and if any of our listeners want a copy of the article, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, and the article is about the, gosh, pragmatism. And viewing things with pragmatism.   0:25:15.3 BB: And I uh, and the possibilities of pragmatism, anyway, there was a lot of alliteration at the time, there was a lot of P's, 'cause what started dawning on me is this need to be practical, pragmatic. And I've got a dictionary definition, "pragmatic, dealing with things of sensibility, and dealing with things that are sensible and realistic in a way which is practical rather than theoretical," right? And where that comes from, in terms of starting where you are, is...   0:26:04.2 BB: Everyone is right. And there's a philosopher years ago that came across this. He says, everyone is right. And so everyone works in an organization where they believe, firmly believe that what they're doing is right, is practical, is pragmatic. And so in a non-Deming organization, would you work on things, Andrew, that are good and going well, that arrive on time, would you spend any time on those things, Andrew?   0:26:33.0 AS: No.   0:26:33.8 BB: And why not, Andrew?   0:26:37.0 AS: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.   0:26:42.1 BB: And that's very practical and pragmatic of you, isn't it?   0:26:46.6 AS: Exactly. I've got limited time. I gotta put out fires.   0:26:51.2 BB: Yeah. And that started to dawn on me, is that in a non-Deming "me" environment, working on things that are good doesn't add value. And so I thought, I mean, how do you argue with that? Now, in a Deming organization, it'd be pragmatic to work on the things that are not broken to either prevent them from breaking or to improve integration. And to not do so would not be practical. So there's two different environments of practicality depending on how you see the world. Um, oh, and last time I named the company, this time I'm not gonna name the company. So I was in an environment with a very well-known consultant.   0:28:00.6 BB: I was invited to travel with this consultant several times over a few years. I could take notes, I was given access to a lot of information on how these ideas were being used in the organization, but I can't talk about where it was, what they were doing, but it was really cool. So in one of the first scenarios, a team came in, led by this guy, and he presented to the consultant over the course of two hours a situation that he was dealing with. And teams would come meet with a consultant for a couple hours. This is one of the very first meetings, so that the engineer came in and said, here's where we are. We've got this issue. And the issue involved a commercial product with a... Let's just say, something about the product, how the customer interacts with it was very laborious. Let's just say like banging it together.   [laughter]   0:29:08.7 BB: It was very laborious. And the resulting warranty claims were on the order of $10-20 million a year in warranty claims. And the solution was kind of like giving the customer a bigger hammer, and actually along those lines. So that scenario was presented and that 10-20 billion at that time was a fraction of the total warranty claims for the company, which was on the order of 2-3 billion. So this was not the biggest issue, but it was a lot of $10-20 million issues. So the engineer proposes a solution, which I would paraphrase as: Spending, hiring someone to manage the variation in the parts that went together to mind the gap. And his theory was that if we minded the gap, we could make these things go together as the customer used it and get rid of all those warranty claims. So I'm thinking, hiring the person to collect the data because it definitely involved hiring someone to give them responsibility. Let's just say putting in place the use of control charts on the respective parts, minding the gap that, you know common cause variation and whatnot. So at that time I'm thinking, salary and benefits, that's maybe a $100,000. Saving the corporation $10 to $20 million. How's that sound, Andrew?   0:30:42.6 AS: Sounds good.   0:30:44.3 BB: Spent a $100,000, save $10 million. So the consultant says to the engineer, so what did the plant manager say? And he said, the plant manager says no. He said, why did the plant manager say no? He said, the plant manager said, why should I spend my budget to save the corporation?   [laughter]   0:31:08.4 BB: Now, if I told you the consultant's response, then you would know the name of the company. So I'm not gonna tell you what the consultant's response was other than the paraphrase would be, I thought you were looking at things as a system. Isn't that the company's slogan? He says, well, not quite. But if you're the plant manager, you're being practical. You're saying, why should I spend my budget to save the corporation? Does that get me promoted? Does that give me visibility or does it make my boss angry? In terms of starting where you are, this is a story you're gonna love. I had an intern one summer, his father was a coworker, he came to a class I was offering twice. 'Cause we allowed employees to bring family members and our vision was to get these ideas out there, fill the empty seats in the classroom. So one is we're filling empty seats, two is, the thought was if we bring in volunteers from the community, and that was a... The training was open to what we called members of the community. Members of the community are people who are working full-time, part-time to serve society. The fact that they work for, you know, General Electric or Lockheed Martin, that was not the issue.   0:32:28.1 BB: So you get to come in because you're a soccer referee, you're a Girl Scout leader, you sing in your church choir, we're gonna fill the empty seats. So this was not taking the space of employees. This is, we have employee space, we have customers, space for customers, place for suppliers, but we still have extra spaces. Let's fill those seats. Boeing's vision was to help the communities in which we live. So I went to my boss with this proposal and he said, go right ahead. And so the operational definition was we invited members of the community. A member of the community is someone who works full-time, part-time to benefit the community.   0:33:05.5 BB: So this, and also we invited family members. And so this guy brings his son in and it was an evening class and which, you know, second shift, which means it ends around midnight. And the one who came in, the son was a, graduated from high school two years early, one of the brightest people I've ever met in my life. And he's an economist by training. So he starts asking economic questions. And he brings up, because hears me talking about how, you know, this movement within Rocketdyne that moved from being a "me" to a "we" organization, the progress we're making, the improvements we're, you know, that we could at least properly talk about. And he says says in economic theory there's this thing called the freeloader principle. Have you heard of it? And I said, no. I said, how does that work?   0:34:00.8 BB: And he says, well, economists will talk about, there'll be people that do the work, and then people who want to ride the train for free. So in your effort for Rocketdyne to move in the direction of being, you know, more of a "we" organization, how will you prevent people from freeloading? And I said, it's easy. I said, everyone will see them and they will know we see them. [laughter] So what you have at Deming organization is, if I leave the bowling ball in a doorway without asking you, you have the visibility to see that. So anyway, he threw that question out. He contacts me a month or so later and he says, Hey, Bill, he says, I'm, I'm gonna be home from college for the summer. I'm looking for a summer job. If you don't, I dunno if you have budget, if you don't have budget, I'll work for free. So I said, I don't have budget. So I made a deal with him. I said, you can come and attend all this training that we're offering over the entire summer. In exchange, here's some things I'd like you to do. So I arranged for him to get a badge. He came in every day.   0:35:10.0 BB: Everywhere I did training across Southern California, he would come with me, be a fly on a wall. And he got to see some really cool stuff. Well, towards the end of the summer, around middle of August, he comes to me and he says he's gonna quit. He's done. Next week is my last week. He says, did I tell you about my other job? I said, no, what other job? He says, oh, I told, I guess I didn't tell you. He said I wanted to see during my last summer in college, 'cause once I graduate, I'm gonna go get a real job. So this is my last summer in college and I figured if the ideas I'm learning from you are worth anything, I wanna go see now. So I says, so what'd you do? He says, I've had a summer job applying these ideas, starting where he is.   0:36:02.6 BB: And I said, okay. And he says, I got a job at a Western Wear store, in Thousand Oaks, that had a sign, walked into the mall, saw a sign at the door looking for a salesperson. So I hired in as a salesperson. I said, so how'd that go? He said, well, the way it works is the salespeople rotate as to who gets the next customer. So there's like three salespeople at any point of time. While I'm working on this one, you sit behind the counter with the others,   just sitting there, you know, twiddling your thumb. So, I said, so, so what'd you do? He said, well, what I started to do was, instead of just sitting behind the counter, if I saw the person waiting on the customer needed a calculator, I'd have it ready for them. If I thought they needed a stapler, I'd have it ready for them.   0:37:00.0 BB: I said, holy cow. I said, what'd that lead to? He said, well, next thing you know, there's, we're doing that for one another. Well, he ended up, after about a month of working there, he was named manager of the store, as a walk-in. I said, how'd that work?   [laughter]   0:37:01.5 BB: How did you after a month become salesperson, you know, moved from being a salesperson to being a manager? He said, well, they keep track of who sells how much each week. You know, it's not a commission system, but they keep track. And because I had the most sales, I got promoted. I said, well, how did you get the most sales? He said, I started asking questions that I learned from you and Tim and the others in the training. I started asking questions about, so somebody comes in, they're looking for a suit, I'm asking them, what's the engagement? And the better I understand where they're coming from, the better I know, you know, you don't need to buy this, you can rent this. And so I started asking questions. The better I understand the questions, the better I'm serving them. So one is, I'm helping my coworkers.   0:38:08.3 BB: Two is, I have been named manager because I'm helping the clients understand...we're better understanding their needs. So he starts off as a salesperson, wins over his colleague and start mimicking his behavior, gets promoted to manager. Now, what he starts to do, in the manager role, is he, there's a, there's... He in the manager's role gets like 10% of all the sales above a certain value. So he starts sharing that profit with all employees on a prorated basis. And there's, the overall sales for the store have improved dramatically.   0:38:56.6 BB: Now he's gonna go off and work on this other big project which was his senior thesis, which also involved taking Deming's ideas and Ackoff's ideas and putting them into a company that he wanted to start. But before he did that, he hired another student, turns out a Stanford graduate, and brought him to class such that this guy could take over for him and keep this thing going. And I said, so are you gonna bring the owner of the store? And he says, no. He says, they have no interest. I say, so what's gonna happen after you leave and after Sam leaves? He says, this is gonna go back to zero. But he walked away having just tried to do what he could with what he learned that summer and made a difference from where he was.   0:39:45.7 AS: Well, that's a great point to end on. And the idea being that when you look around at your company, at your school, at your job, at your life, and you wanna start implementing these ideas, it can get overwhelming as you look at the bigger and bigger systems or other things. So the objective really is just start small and start where you are. Anything you would add in a wrap-up?   0:40:11.6 BB: Yeah. Another thing I'd like to add to that, have you heard the expression, management works on the system, people work in the system?   0:40:24.8 AS: Yeah.   0:40:27.6 BB: Okay. That's attributed to Myron Tribus. And people have said to me, Bill, management works on the system, people work in the system. Well, I've heard people use that expression as a means of saying, if you aren't in management, then you can't... Then just wait. Just wait. Because if you're a willing worker, Andrew, you're just a machinist in the factory, well, Andrew, you're not, that's not management. I mean, you're working in the system. The people in management work on the system. And so a disagreement I've had with some people is that if I was to believe that expression, then I would wait for management to take action. And that may take forever. And so...   [laughter]   0:41:23.7 BB: In fact, I had a guy who was working with Deming, or a guy who was somehow affiliated with some Deming consultants, and he came to a class at Rocketdyne years ago and he says, so Bill, how often do you meet with the president of Rocketdyne? I said, not very often. He said, does he support what you're doing? I said, of course he does. If he wasn't, you wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be here. But how often do you meet with him? I said, not very often. He says, you know what Myron Tribus says, I say, oh, no. What did Myron say? He says, Myron says, management works on the system, people work in the system. He says, you need to be meeting with him all the time. I said, he's in Washington DC trying to get us next generation contracts, and I think that is far more important a point of work for him than anything else. And he says, oh, no. He says, I think you're wrong. And I said, I look at him, I said, so actually, I said, I think there might be a bigger system.   0:42:27.0 BB: You know, it's something more important to do. "More important than working with the president of your company, Bill?" I said, "What if I am meeting with people at NASA headquarters? What if I am meeting with the Army's first [woman] four star general," which I had. I said, what if that? I said, "So you just want me to start, you think the system is constrained to me just getting the president smart?" And so there I would say is, one is, if you follow the belief, and Myron was brilliant, and I don't... But I think if you take that verbatim, management works on the system, people work in the system, now you're back to Russ Ackoff and that student asking the question, where do I... Yeah, don't I have to work for management to get on board? And I said, no. What I try to do in my classes and with clients is help people on any level get smart about these ideas, try to give them everyday examples that they can share with their peers relative to givng an everyday example of Dr. Taguchi 's loss function.   0:43:40.1 BB: Giving an everyday understanding of the difference between managing actions and management systems, so that individuals can become more articulate in explaining to others. And simultaneously, what Ackoff would say, the best way to learn something is teach it to others. And so, my hope is that people listening to our podcast, don't think you have to wait for senior management to get on board, start to make a difference from where you are, practice your understanding of these ideas, explaining them to people outside of work where you might be given more time to explain it than somebody at work.   0:44:18.3 BB: Use that experience to try to do something with it. Maybe the experiments you run are at home, in some manner. And hopefully that then inspires you to go a little bit further. And another thing I'll point out is in a future podcast, I'll talk about what I learned from a good friend on how to create change within an organization starting at the bottom of the organization, which gets into some more detail, but it's still based on the premise of starting from where you are with a theory and understanding that what people call practical, there's Deming practical and there's non-Deming practical. So if they're saying they're being practical, they are truly being practical, don't be dissuaded by that.   [laughter]   0:45:04.4 AS: Boom. Well, Bill, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And if you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, "People are entitled to joy in work."

Jill Bates, PharmD, MS, BCOP, DipACLM, FASHP, is the Deputy Executive Director of the National Pharmacogenomics Program within the National Oncology Program Office of the Veterans Affairs (VA). Dr. Bates is an expert in oncology and pharmacogenomics and has led the VA's Pharmacogenomics program that is being rolled out nationwide. We talk through her background in both areas as well as the  VA's investment in pharmacogenomics and precision medicine. As part of their investment, they are hiring 120 pharmacists in this space across the country. Enjoy all things pharmaocgenomics in this episode! Below are article links of the VA's experience in pharmacogenomics. This article describes the VA's pilot PHASER program: Veterans Affairs Pharmacogenomic Testing for Veterans (PHASER) clinical program - PubMed (nih.gov)This article  reviews the VA's first PDSA cycle on pharmacogenomics implementation: Evaluation of the Veterans Affairs Pharmacogenomic Testing for Veterans (PHASER) clinical program at initial test sites - PubMed (nih.gov)This article talks about the VA NPOP service and the importance of pharmacists within the precision oncology space: Oncology Pharmacists Help Bridge the Gap to Optimize Precision Oncology Services for Veterans With Cancer - PubMed (nih.gov)This article has an overview of the VA's PHASER program and other germline PGx programs throughout North Carolina: North Carolina's multi-institutional pharmacogenomics efforts with the North Carolina Precision Health Collaborative - PubMed (nih.gov)

Dave Mangot, CEO and founder of Mangoteque, joins Coreyon Screaming in the Cloud to explain how leveraging DevOps improves the lives of engineers and results in stronger businesses. Dave talks about the importance of exclusively working for private equity firms that act ethically, the key difference between venture capital and private equity, and how conveying issues and ideas to your CEO using language he understands leads to faster results. Corey and Dave discuss why successful business are built on two things: infrastructure as code and monitoring.About DaveDave Mangot, author of DevOps Patterns for Private Equity, helps portfolio companies get good at delivering software.  He is a leading consultant, author, and speaker as the principal at Mangoteque.  A DevOps veteran, Dave has successfully led digital, SRE, and DevOps transformations at companies such as Salesforce, SolarWinds, and Cable & Wireless. He has a proven track record of working with companies to quickly mature their existing culture to improve the speed, frequency, and resilience of their software service delivery.Links Referenced: Mangoteque: https://www.mangoteque.com DevOps Patterns for Private Equity: https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Patterns-Private-Equity-organization/dp/B0CHXVDX1K “How to Talk Business: A Short Guide for Tech Leaders”: https://itrevolution.com/articles/how-to-talk-business-a-short-guide-for-tech-leaders/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today is someone that I have known for, well, longer than I've been doing this show. Dave Mangot is the founder and CEO at Mangoteque. Dave, thank you for joining me.Dave: Hey, Corey, it's great to be here. Nice to see you again.Corey: I have to say, your last name is Mangot and the name of your company is Mangoteque, spelled M-A-N-G-O-T-E-Q-U-E, if I got that correctly, which apparently I did. What an amazing name for a company. How on earth did you name a company so well?Dave: Yeah, I don't know. I have to think back, a few years ago, I was just getting started in consulting, and I was talking to some friends of mine who were giving me a bunch of advice—because they had been doing consulting for quite some time—about what my rates should be, about all kinds of—you know, which vendors I should work with for my legal advice. And I said, “I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with a name for the company.” And this guy, Corey Quinn, was like, “Hey, I got a name for you.” [laugh].Corey: I like that story, just because it really goes to show the fine friends of mine over at all of the large cloud services companies—but mostly AWS—that it's not that hard to name something well. The trick, I think, is just not to do it in committee.Dave: Yeah. And you know, it was a very small committee obviously of, like, three. But yeah, it's been great. I have a lot of compliments on the name of my company. And I was like, oh, “You know that guy, the QuinnyPig dude?” And they're like, “Yeah?” “Oh, yeah, it was—that was his idea.” And I liked it. And it works really well for the things that I do.Corey: It seems to. So, talk to you about what it is that you do because back when we first met and many, many years ago, you were an SRE manager at a now defunct observability company. This was so long ago, I don't think that they used the term observability. It was Librato, which, “What do you do?” “We do monitoring,” back when that didn't sound like some old-timey thing. Like, “Oh, yeah. Right, between the blacksmith and the cobbler.” But you've evolved significantly since you were doing the mundane, pedestrian tasks of keeping the service up and running. What do you do these days?Dave: Yeah, that was before the observability wars [laugh] [whatever you like 00:02:55] to call it. But over time, that company was owned by SolarWinds and I wound up being responsible for all the SolarWinds cloud company SRE organizations. So, started—ran a global organization there. And they were owned by a couple of private equity firms. And I got to know one of the firms rather well, and then when I left SolarWinds, I started working with private equity firm portfolio companies, especially software investments. And what I like to say is I teach people how to get good at delivering software.Corey: So, you recently wrote a book, and I know this because I make it a point to get a copy of the book—usually by buying it, but you beat me to it by gifting me one—of every guest I have on the show who's written a book. Sometimes that means I wind up with the eclectic collections of poetry, other times, I wind up with a number of different books around the DevOps and cloud space. And one of these days, I'm going to wind up talking to someone who wound up writing an encyclopedia or something, to where I have to back the truck around. But what I wanted to ask is about your title, of all things. It's called DevOps Patterns for Private Equity. And I have to ask, what makes private equity special?Dave: I think as a cloud economist, what you also just told me, is you owe me $17.99 for the book because it was gifted.Corey: Is that how expensive books are these days? My God, I was under the impression once you put the word ‘DevOps' in the title, that meant you're above 40 bucks, just as, you know, entrance starting fees here.Dave: I think I need to talk to my local cloud economist on how to price things. Yeah, the book is about things that I've basically seen at portfolio companies over the years. The thing about, you know, why private equity, I think it would be one question, just because I've been involved in the DevOps movement since pretty much the start, when John Willis calls me a DevOps OG, which I think is a compliment. But the thing that I like about working with private equity, and more specifically, private equity portfolio companies is, like I wrote in the book, they're serious. And serious means that they're not afraid to make a big investment, they're not afraid to change things quickly, they're not afraid to reorganize, or rethink, or whatever because a lot of these private equity firms have, how they describe it as a three to five year investment thesis. So, in three to five years, they want to have some kind of an exit event, which means that they can't just sit around and talk about things and try it and see what happens—Corey: In the fullness of time, 20 years from now. Yeah, it doesn't work that well. But let's back up a little bit here because something that I have noticed over the years is that, especially when it comes to financial institutions, the general level of knowledge is not terrific. For a time, a lot of people were very angry at Goldman Sachs, for example. But okay, fair enough. What does Goldman Sachs do? And the answer was generally incoherent.And again, I am in no way, shape or form, different from people who form angry opinions without having all of the facts. I do that myself three times before breakfast. My last startup was acquired by BlackRock, and I was the one that raised our hand internally, at the 40-person company when that was announced, as everyone was sort of sitting there stunned: “What's a BlackRock?” Because I had no idea. Well, for the next nine months, I assure you, I found out what a BlackRock is. But what is private equity? Because I see a lot of them getting beaten up for destroying companies. Everyone wants to bring up the Toys-R-Us story as a for instance. But I don't get the sense that that is the full picture. Tell me more.Dave: Yes. So, I'm probably not the best spokesperson for private equity. But—Corey: Because you don't work for a private equity firm, you only work with them, that makes you a terrific spokesperson because you're not [in 00:06:53] this position of, “Well, justify what your company does here,” situation, there's something to be said for objectivity.Dave: So, you know, like I wrote in the book, there are approximately 10,000 private equity firms in the United States. They are not all going to be ethical. That is just not a thing. I choose to work with a specific segment of private equity companies, and these private equity companies want to make a good business. That's what they're going for.And you and I, having had worked at many companies in our careers, know that there's a lot of companies out there that aren't a good business. You're like, “Why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense. This isn't a good investment. This”—there's a lot of things and what I would call the professional level private equity firms, the ones at the top—and not all of them at the top are ethical, don't get me wrong; I have a blacklist here of companies I won't work for. I will not say who those companies are.Corey: I am in the same boat. I think that anyone who works in an industry at all and doesn't have a list of companies that they would not do business with, is, on some level, either haven't thought it through, hasn't been in business long enough, or frankly, as long as you're paying them, everything you can do is a-okay. And you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that those are terrible people, but I never wanted to do that soul-searching. I always thought the only way to really figure out where you stand is to figure it out in advance before there's money on the table. Like, do you want to go do contracting for a defense company? Well no, objectively, I don't, but that's a lot harder to say when they're sitting on the table with $20 million in front of you of, “Do you want to work with a defense company?” Because you can rationalize your way into anything when the stakes are high enough. That's where I've always stood on it. But please, continue.Dave: I'd love to be in that situation to turn down $20 million [laugh].Corey: Yeah, that's a hard situation to find yourself in, right?Dave: But regardless, there's a lot of different kinds of private equity firms. Generally the firms that I work with, they all want—not generally; the ones I work with want to make better companies. I have had operating partners at these companies tell me—because this always comes up with private equity—there's no way to cut your way to a good company. So, the private equity firms that I work with invest in these companies. Do they sell off unprofitable things? Of course they do. Do they try to streamline some things sometimes so that the company is only focused on X or Y, and then they tuck other companies into it—that's called a buy and build strategy or a platform strategy—yes. But the purpose of that is to make a better company.The thing that I see a lot of people in our industry—meaning, like, us tech kind of folks—get confused about is what the difference is between venture capital and private equity. And private equity, in general, is the thing that is the kind of financing that follows on after venture capital. So, in venture capital, you are trying to find product-market fit. The venture capitalists are putting all their bets down like they're in Vegas at re:Invent, and trying to figure out which bet is going to pay off, but they have no expectation that all of the bets are going to pay off. With private equity, the companies have product-market fit, they're profitable. If they're not profitable, they have a very clear line to profitability.And so, what these private equity firms are trying to do, no matter what the size of the company is, whether it's a 50-person company or a 5000-person company, they're trying to get these companies up to another level so that they're more profitable and more valuable, so that either a larger fish will gobble them up or they'll go out on the public markets, like onto the stock market, those kinds of things, but they're trying to make a company that's more valuable. And so, not everything looks so good [laugh] when you're looking at it from the outside, not understanding what these people are trying to do. That's not to say they're not complete jerks who are in private equity because there are.Corey: Because some parts are missing. Kidding. Kidding. Kidding.Dave: [laugh].Corey: It's a nuanced area, and it's complicated, just from the perspective of… finance is deceptively complicated. It looks simple, on some level, because on some level, you can always participate in finance. I have $10. I want to buy a thing that costs $7. How does that work? But it gets geometrically more complex the further you go. Financial engineering is very much a thing.And it is not at all obvious how those things interplay with different dynamics. One of the private equity outcomes, as you alluded to a few minutes ago, is the idea that they need to be able to rapidly effect change. It becomes a fast turnaround situation, and then have an exit event of some kind. So, the DevOps patterns that you write about are aligned with an idea of being effective, presumably, rather than, well, here's how you slowly introduce a sweeping cultural mindset shift across the organization. Like, that's great, but some of us don't have that kind of runway for what we're trying to achieve to be able to pull that off. So, I'm assuming that a lot of the patterns you talk about are emphasizing rapid results.Dave: Well, I think the best way to describe this, right, is what we've talked about is they want to make a better company. And for those of us who have worked in the DevOps movement for all these years, what's one great way of making a better company? Adopting DevOps principles, right? And so, for me, one of the things I love about my job is I get to go in and make engineers' lives better. No more working on weekends, no more we're only going to do deployments at 11 o'clock at night, no more we're going to batch things up and ship them three or four times a year, which all of us who've done DevOps stuff for years know, like, fastest way to have a catastrophe is batch up as many things as possible and release them all at once.So like, for me, I'm going in making engineers' lives better. When their lives are better, they produce better results because they're not stressed out, they're not burned out, they get to spend time with their families, all those kinds of things. When they start producing better results, the executives are happier. The executives can go to the investors and show all the great results they're getting, so the investors are happier. So, for me, I always say, like, I'm super lucky because I have a job that's win, win, win.And like, I'm helping them to make a better company, I'm helping them to ship faster, I'm helping them do things in the cloud, I'm helping them get more reliability, which helps them retain customers, all these things. Because we know from the—you know, remember the 2019 State of DevOps Report: highest performers are twice as likely to meet or exceed their organization's performance goals, and those can be customer retention, revenue, whatever those goals are. And so, I get to go in and help make a better company because I'm making people's lives better and, kind of, everybody wins. And so, for me, it's super rewarding.Corey: That's a good way of framing it. I have to ask, since the goal for private equity, as you said, is to create better companies, to effectively fix a bunch of things that, for better or worse, had not been working optimally. Let me ask the big, dumb, naive question here. Isn't that ostensibly the goal of every company? Now, everyone says it's their goal, but whether that is their goal or not, I think, is a somewhat separate question.Dave: Yeah. I—that should be the goal of every company, I agree. There are people who read my book and said, “Hey, this stuff applies far beyond private equity.” And I say, “Yeah, it absolutely does.” But there are constraints—[gold rat 00:15:10]—within private equity, about the timing, about the funding, about whatever, to get the thing to another level. And that's an interesting thing that I've seen is I've seen private equity companies take a company up to another level, have some kind of exit event, and then buy that company again years later. Which, like, what? Like, how could that be?Corey: I've seen that myself. It feels, on some level, like that company goes public, and then goes private, then goes public, then goes private to the same PE firm, and it's like, are you really a PE company or are you just secretly a giant cat, perpetually on the wrong side of a door somewhere?Dave: But that's because they will take it to a level, the company does things, things happen out in the market, and then they see another opportunity to grow them again. Where in a regular company—in theory—you're going to want to just get better all the time, forever. This is the Toyota thesis about continual improvement.Corey: I am curious as far as what you are seeing changing in the market with the current macroeconomic conditions, which is a polite way to say the industry going wonky after ten years of being relatively up and to the right.Dave: Yeah, well, I guess the fun thing is, we have interest rates, we had a pandemic, we had [laugh], like, all this exciting stuff. There's, you know, massive layoffs, [unintelligible 00:16:34] and then all this, kind of like, super churn-y things. I think the fun thing for me is, I went to a private equity conference in San Francisco, I don't know, a month ago or something like that, and they had all these panelists on stage pontificating about this and that and the other thing, and one of the women said something that I thought was really great, especially for someone like me. She said, “The next five to ten years in private equity are going to be about growth and operational efficiency.” And I was like, “That's DevOps. That's awesome.” [laugh].That really works well for me because, like, we want to have people twice as likely to meet or exceed their organization's performance goals. That's growth. And we want operational efficiency, right? Like, stop manually copying files around, start putting stuff in containers, do all these things that enable us to go fast speed and also do that with high quality. So, if the next five to ten years are going to be about growth and operational efficiency, I think it's a great opportunity for people to take in a lot of these DevOps principles.And so, the being on the Screaming in the Cloud podcast, like, I think cloud is a huge part of that. I think that's a big way to get growth and operational efficiency. Like, how better to be able to scale? How better to be able to Deming's PDSA cycle, right—Plan, Do, Study, Act—how better to run all these experiments to find out, like, how to get better, how to be more efficient, how to meet our customers' demands. I think that's a huge part of it.Corey: That is, I think, a very common sentiment as far as how folks are looking at things from a bigger picture these days. I want to go back as well to something you said earlier that I was joking around at the start of the episode about, “Wow, what an amazing name for the company. How did you come up with it?” And you mentioned that you had been asking a bunch of people for advice—or rather, you mentioned you had gotten advice from people. I want to clarify, you were in fact asking. I wasn't basically the human form of Clippy popping up, “It looks like you're starting a business. Let me give you unsolicited advice on what you should be doing.”What you've done, I think, is a terrific example of the do what I say not what I do type of problem, where you have focused on your positioning on a specific segment of the market: private equity firms and their portfolio companies. If I had been a little bit smarter, I would have done something similar in my own business. I would fix AWS bills for insurance companies in the Pacific Northwest or something like that, where people can hear the type of company they are reflected in the name of what it is that you do. I was just fortunate enough or foolish enough to be noisy enough in order to talk about what I do in a way that I was able to overcome that. But targeting the way that you have, I think is just so spot on. And it's clearly working out for you.Dave: I think a Corey Quinn Clippy would be very distracting in [laugh] my Microsoft Word, first of all [laugh]. Second of all—Corey: They're calling it Copilot now.Dave: [laugh]—there's this guy Corey and his partner Mike who turned me on to this guy, Jonathan Stark, who has his theory about your business. He calls it, like, elucidating, like, a Rolodex moment. So, if somebody's talking about X or Y, and they say, “Oh, yeah. You want to talk to Corey about that.” Or, “You want to talk to Mike about that.”And so, for me, working with private equity portfolio companies, that's a Rolodex moment. When people are like, “I'm at a portfolio company. We just got bought. They're coming in, and they want to understand what our spend is on the cloud, and this and that. Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here.” A lot of times people think of me because I tend to work on those kinds of problems. And so, it doesn't mean I can't work on other things, and I definitely do work on other things, I've definitely worked with companies that are not owned by private equity, but for me, that's really a place that I enjoy working, and thankfully, I get Rolodex moments from those things.Corey: That's the real value that I've found. The line I've heard is always it's not just someone at a party popping up and saying, “Oh, yeah, I have that problem.” But, “Oh, my God, you need to talk to this person I know who has that problem.” It's the introduction moment. In my case at least, it became very hard for me to find people self-identifying as having large AWS bills, just because, yeah, individual learners or small startup founders, for example, might talk about it here and there, but large companies do not tend to complain about that in Twitter because that tends to, you know, get them removed from their roles when they start going down that path. Do you find that it is easier for you to target what you do to people because it's easier to identify them in public? Because I assure you, someone with a big AWS bill is hard to spot out of a crowd.Dave: Well, I think you need to meet people where they are, I think is probably the best way of saying that. So, if you are—and this isn't something I need to explain to you, obviously, so this is more for your listeners, but like, if you're going to talk about, “Hey, I'm looking for companies with large AWS bills,” [pthhh] like that's, maybe kind of whatever. But if you say, “Hey, I want to improve your margins and your operational efficiencies,” all of a sudden, you're starting to speak their language, right? And that language is where people start to understand that, “Hey, Corey's talking about me.”Corey: A large part of how I talk about this was shaped by some of the early conversations I had. The way that I think about this stuff and the way that I talk is not necessarily what terms my customers use. Something that I found that absolutely changed my approach was having an investigative journalist—or a former investigative journalist, in this case—interview people I'd worked with to get case studies and testimonials from them. But what she would also do was get the exact phrasing that they use to describe the value that I did, and how they talked about what we'd done. Because that became something that was oh, you're effectively writing the rough draft of my marketing copy when you do that. Speaking in the language of your customer is so important, and I meet a lot of early-stage startups that haven't quite unlocked that bit of insight yet.Dave: And I think looking at that from a slightly different perspective is also super important. So, not only speaking the language of your customer, but let's say you're not a consultant like me or you. Let's say you work inside of a company. You need to learn to speak the language of business, right? And this is, like, something I wrote about in the beginning of the book about the guy in San Francisco who got locked up for not giving away the Cisco passwords, and Gavin Newsom had to go to his jail cell and all this other crazy stuff that happened is, technologists often think that the reason that they go to work is to play with technology. The reason we go to work is to enable the business.And—so shameless plug here I—wrote a paper that came out, like, two months ago with IT Revolution—so the people who do The Phoenix Project, and Accelerate, and The DevOps Handbook, and all that other stuff, I wrote this paper with, like, Courtney Kissler, and Paul Gaffney, and Scott Nasello, and a whole bunch of amazing technologists, but it's about speaking the language of business. And as technologists, if we want to really contribute and feel like the work that we're doing is contributing and valuable, you need to start understanding how those other people are talking. So, you and I were just talking about, like, operational efficiencies, and margins, and whatever. What is all that stuff? And figuring that out and being able to have that conversation with your CEO or whoever, those are the things that get people to understand exactly what you're trying to do, and what you're doing, and why this thing is so important.I talk to so many engineers that are like, “Ah, I talked to management and they just don't understand, and [da-dah].” Yeah, they don't understand because you're speaking technology language. They don't want to hear about, like, CNCF compliant this, that, and the—that doesn't mean anything to them. You need to understand in their lang—talk to them and their language and say like, “Hey, this is why this is good for the business.” And I think that's a really important thing for people to start to learn.Corey: So, a question that I have, given that you have been doing this stuff, I think, longer than I have, back when cloud wasn't really a thing, and then it was a thing, but it seemed really irresponsible to do. And then it went through several more iterations to the point where now it's everywhere. What's your philosophy of cloud?Dave: So, I'll go back to something that just came out, the 2023 State of DevOps Report just came out. I follow those things pretty closely. One of the things they talked about in the paper is one of the key differentiators to get your business to have what they call high organizational performance—again, this [laugh] is going back to business talk again—is what they call infrastructure flexibility. And I just don't think you can get infrastructure flexibility if you're not in the cloud. Can you do it? Absolutely.You know, back over a decade ago, I built out a bunch of stuff in a data center on what I called cloud principles. We could shoot things in the head, get new ones back, we did all kinds of things, we identified SKUs of, like, what kind of classes of machines we had. All that looks like a lot of stuff that you would just do in AWS, right? Like, I know, my C instances are compute. I know my M instances are memory. Like, they're all just SKUs, right?Corey: Yeah, that changed a little bit now to the point where they have so many different instance families that some of their names look like dumps of their firmware.Dave: [laugh]. That is probably true. But like, this idea that, like, I want to have this infrastructure flexibility isn't just my idea that it's going to turn out well. Like, the State of DevOps Report kind of proves it. And so, for me, like, I go back to some of the principles of the DevOps movement, and like, if you look at the DORA metrics, let's say you've got deployment frequency and lead time for changes. That's speed: how fast can I do something? And you've got time-to-recover, and you've got change failure rate. That's quality: how much can I ship without having problems, and how fast can I recover when I do?And I think this is one of the things I teach to a lot of my clients about moving into the cloud. If you want to be successful, you have to deliver with speed and quality. Speed: Infrastructure as Code, full stop. If I want to be able to go fast, I need to be able to destroy an environment, bring a new environment up, I need to be able to do that in minutes. That's speed.And then the second requirement, and the only other requirement, is build monitoring in from the start. Everything gets monitored. And that's quality. Like, if I monitor stuff, I know when I've deployed something that's spiking CPU. If that's monitored, I know that this thing is costing me a hell of a lot more than other things. I know all this stuff. And I can do capacity planning, I can do whatever the heck I want. But those are the two fundamental things: Infrastructure as Code and monitoring.And yes, like you said, I worked at a monitoring or observability company, so perhaps I'm slightly biased, but what I've seen is, like, companies that adopt those two principles, and everything else comes from that—so all my Kubernetes stuff and all those other things are not at odds with those principles—those are the people who actually wind up doing really well. And I think those are the people that have—State of DevOps Report—infrastructure flexibility, and that enables them to have higher organizational performance.Corey: I think you're onto something. Like, I still remember the days of having to figure out the number of people who you had in your ops team versus how many servers they could safely and reasonably run. And now that question has little, if any, meaning. If someone asked me, “Okay, so we're running right now 10,000 instances in our cloud environment. How many admins should it take us to run those?” The correct response is, “How the heck are you running those things?” Like, tell me more because the answer is probably terrifying. Because right now, if you do that correctly, it's you want to make a change to all of them or some subset of them? You change a parameter somewhere and computers do the heavy lifting.Dave: Yeah, I ran a content delivery network for cable and wireless. We had three types of machines. You know, it was like Windows Media Server and some squid-cache thing or whatever. And it didn't matter how many we had. It's all the same. Like, if I had 10,000 and I had 50,000, it's irrelevant. Like, they're all the same kind of crap. It's not that hard to manage a bunch of stuff that's all the same.If I have 10,000 servers and each one is a unique, special snowflake because I'm running in what I call a hosted configuration, I have 10,000 customers, therefore I have 10,000 servers, and each of them is completely different than the other, then that's going to be a hell of a lot harder to manage than 10,000 things that the load balancer is like [bbbrrrp bbbrrrp] [laugh] like, just lay it out. So, it's sort of a… kind of a nonsense question at this point. Like you're saying, like, it doesn't really matter how many. It's complexity. How much complexity do I have? And as we all say, in the DevOps movement, complexity isn't free. Which I'll bet is a large component of how you save companies money with The Duckbill Group.Corey: It goes even beyond that because cloud infrastructure is always less expensive than the people working on it, unless you do something terrifying. Otherwise, everything should be running an EC2 instances. Nothing higher-level built on top of it because if people's time is free, the cheapest thing you're going to get is a bunch of instances. The end. That is not really how you should be thinking about this.Dave: [laugh]. I know a lot of private equity firms that would love to find a place where time was free [laugh]. They could make a lot of money.Corey: Yeah. Pretty sure that the biggest—like, “What's your biggest competitive headwind?” You know [laugh], “Wage laws.” Like it doesn't work that way. I'm sorry, but it doesn't [laugh].I really want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me about what you're up to, how things are going over in your part of the universe. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to go to find you?Dave: They can go to mangoteque.com. I've got all the links to my blog, my mailing list. Definitely, if you're interested in this intersection of DevOps and private equity, sign up for the mailing list. For people who didn't get Corey's funky spelling of my last name, it is a play on the fact that it is French and I also work with technology companies. So, it's M-A-N-G-O-T-E-Q-U-E dot com.If you type that in—Mangoteque—to any search engine, obviously, you will find me. I am not difficult to find on the internet because I've been doing this for quite some time. But thank you for having me on the show. It's always great to catch up with you. I love hearing about what you're doing. I super appreciate you're asking me about the things that I'm working on, and you know, been a big help.Corey: No, it's deeply fascinating. It's neat to watch you continue to meet your market in a variety of different ways. Dave Mangot, CEO and founder of Mangoteque, which is excellently named. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this episode, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment almost certainly filled with incoherent screaming because you tuned out just as soon as you heard the words ‘private equity.'Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business, and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

John Willis is another absolute legend in software delivery and DevOps, an industry veteran working at companies such as Docker and evangelizing good technical practices. He is the co-author of The DevOps Handbook, Beyond The Phoenix Project and Investments Unlimited, and lately, he published an incredible book on Dr. William Edwards Deming called "Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge."I thought I knew everything there was to know about Dr. Deming - after all, what is there to know - watch out for seven data points in a row above or beyond the average and do something - and that's it! Except it's not! :)Through his book and by hanging out with him in a weekly book club, John took me on the journey of exploring Deming, and at times, it felt like going through an escape room - just as I thought I understood everything, I'd find a new door and a whole new world. This episode is a glimpse into John's book and our ongoing conversations with the hope that we will also spark interest for Deming in others.

What does "systems and operations" actually mean? What is LEAN and how can you use PDSA to continuously improve your business? These are just some of the questions we're answering on the podcast today.I'm excited to welcome Brooke Scott, COO and Integrator to the Scrappy Business Podcast.Her mission is to help others optimize & restore their business operations foundation without wasting time and money. She focuses her approach to any project or task using lean fundamentals with the overall goal of keeping things streamlined from the ground up. She serves women entrepreneurs & mompreneurs, agencies, coaches, course creators & consultants by creating the swoon-worthy, efficient systems of their dreams and managing their internal & external operations so that they can get back to doing what they love in their zone of genius.You can find out more about Brooke and connect with her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/projectgrowthmode/Or on her website: https://agencytwentythree.com/Full shownotes here: https://jessicadornieden.com/47Enjoy the episode!Support the showThanks for listening!Reminder: The show used to be called Podcasting for Experts and has been re-branded in 2023 to "The Scrappy Business Podcast" - because your podcast does NOT exist in isolation. To hear more listen to episode #43.For shownotes and links mentioned head over here: https://jessicadornieden.com/the-scrappy-business-podcast/For business tech and systems help feel free to nosy around my website: https://jessicadornieden.com/For podcasting-related content and services visit our agency website: https://pristinepodcasts.com/You can find me on various social platformsIG: @jessicadorniedenTikTok: @jessicadorniedenFacebook Personal: /jessica.dorniedenYouTube (new videos coming): @JessicaDornieden

In this episode, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz discuss what Dr. Deming meant by "institute training on the job" and "adopt and institute leadership" (principles 6 and 7). How do you follow those principles in the context of education? TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.6 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. This is episode 13, and we're continuing our discussion about the shift from management myths to principles for the transformation of schools systems. John, take it away. 0:00:30.0 John Dues: Good to be back, Andrew. Yeah. We've turned to this set of principles that can be used by systems leaders to guide their transformation work. In the last few episodes, we've discussed the first five principles, the five of the 14. Just to recap real quick, we did constancy of purpose was number one. Principle two is adopt the new philosophy. Then we did principle three, cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Four was maximize high quality learning, and the last time we talked about working continually on the system. And then the plan today is to talk about the sixth principle, which is institute training, and then the seventh principle, which is adopt and institute leadership. So, I figure we just dive in with principle six. So sort of the short version is "institute training on the job." And this really is training for everybody in the system. So in our system that would be students, teachers, staff, management, basically so that everyone can make better contributions to the school system.   0:01:42.7 JD: And just to clarify, when I'm talking about training, I think what it's important to know is that I'm talking about learning how to do a particular job within the system using a particular set of methods and tools. And basically the purpose of training in a system is to allow a worker or a student to know exactly what their job is. Now, we're constantly updating that training because in our world for teachers and principals, you have to constantly develop new skills to keep up with changes in whatever it may be, cognitive science, new curriculum, lesson design, new technology, better teaching techniques. Any number of things that we're training on and improving our training on on an ongoing basis. But a major aim of the training in our system is to reduce variation in methods, basically. I think no matter what type of training you get as a teacher, I think you've experienced variation in methods.   0:02:51.3 JD: And if you go to pretty much any school building in the United States, I think most educators would very quickly tell you, and I think even parents and students, you could sort of go room to room and say, yep, that's the strict teacher. That's the teacher that lets you get away with anything. So this is sort of commonly known when it comes to how teachers run their classrooms, especially on the classroom management level. Everybody knows who has the highly structured classrooms or the disciplined classrooms, but this really does cause problems when you think about it, 'cause there's this mixed message about what a classroom is supposed to look like. And I think on the flip side of classroom management is instruction. And I think there's a lot of variation there. And that's more hidden, I think, but probably possibly more important to sort of consider. And so when you have a typical, let's say an elementary school, an elementary school has three third grade classrooms, and each of those three teachers in most schools in the US, they operate pretty independently of each other.   0:04:05.6 JD: And a lot of schools, each of those teachers would have their own sort of preferred methods. And even sequencing for how that, let's say, a math class is taught. But then the problem is that some combination of students from each one of those classes in third grade that following year are gonna end up in a fourth grade classroom. And now this fourth grade teacher has to deal with this. And really the fourth grade teacher is this customer of the third grade teachers. But if each of the third grade teachers are sort of doing their own thing, then they've sort of optimized each of their own classrooms at the expense of the system. So that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about sort of reducing variation in methods through training.   0:04:58.9 AS: So there's a few things to discuss in this that I think are interesting. The first thing is, let me just repeat what you said. The aim is to reduce variation in methods. I think most people, if they expected you to say something, they would've expected you to say, "The goal is to reduce variation in outcomes." So tell us why... Now, it may be that methods get to reduce variation in outcomes, but you're focusing on methods. So just tell us a little bit more, because also as we know, there's teachers want some independence and there's some academic independence, at least at let's say university level. They try to have more of that. But maybe you could talk a little bit more about the methods and why you focus on methods instead of just saying you do it the best you can. And one other thing I would say about that is that you could say that if you had three different teachers, different styles, some students would perform better in one style versus another. But a counter argument is, well, we're not sorting them by that to put them into those classrooms. So it's only by luck if that happens. So tell us more about that.   0:06:05.5 JD: Yeah, I think when I'm talking about methods, maybe I should maybe use a little bit different language, but I think probably the most important thing here is that the same sort of high quality curriculum is in front of students. And let's take a math curriculum, for example. Many schools, even at the school building level, there could very well be variation in what the teachers are putting in front of the students, and even in the same school, in the same grade level, let's take those three third grade math classrooms. Now, it's certainly possible that those teachers have taken upon themselves to have a highly sort of coherent system, it's also possible that their school or their district has a highly coherent system, but a lot of times what I found is that, each teacher is sort of making their own decisions, and they sort of say, I'm following the state standards, but those state standards are often general statements, and there's a lot of wiggle room [chuckle] into what you could sort of fit into that.   0:07:11.6 JD: And so what ends up happening is people go to the internet and go to various websites and they print off their preferred worksheets a lot of times. And so when I'm talking about variation in methods, what I'm mostly talking about is a high quality curriculum that's coherent and it's used in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade. Now, within that, teachers have... Still have many, many, many, many decisions to make in terms of how that curriculum gets used, how they sort of adapt it to their students, how they design individual lessons, there's all kinds of room for sort of creativity, individual decision-making, responding to how your students are doing when you actually put it in front of them, but that's mainly what I'm talking about when I'm talking about variation in methods.   0:08:04.8 AS: Okay, got it.   0:08:07.5 JD: Yeah. So, I mean, I think we sort of recognized this as a school network here in Columbus, we have the two elementary schools, the two middle schools. We're a fairly young organization and our oldest building is 15 years old, our newest building is only five years old, and so because we're a relatively young organization, many of our teachers are very early in their careers. So this sort of training, having a set of methods, a set of curricula that we're training on was really important, and so we thought it was so important in fact that we actually have a three-week... It's three and a half weeks that we call a summer institute for teachers prior to the start of the school year. It's a little bit shorter for veteran teachers, but for new teachers, it's three and a half weeks and they actually just finished it 'cause this is our first day of school actually today, so we have the summer institute, and so that was important to us, we're gonna have this training program for our early career teachers, but then the question quickly becomes, what is it that we're doing during that summer institute time period?   0:09:22.4 JD: And so that's where I think this sort of deliberate thought about training comes in, so one of the things that we did is design a capacity matrix for teachers, and so we've talked about this, but just basically outlining what are the capacities that we want teachers to learn and develop during their time with us, not only as new teachers, but it's a sort of an ongoing development road map really, and we have this capacity matrix that outlines the skills, the mindsets, the knowledge that we want teachers to sort of gain over time, some of it through this summer institute, and it sort of defines, "Here's the capacities." It breaks those capacities down into things that we're then linking to specific training sessions throughout that summer institute. And it's not really an evaluation tool, it's more like a road map for, "Here are the things I wanna be working on, here's how I'm doing, here's some areas where I can go learn this even, outside the training because the capacity matrix also has readings linked, it also has podcasts or videos or books that are linked, that if there's an area that a teacher is particularly interested in, they can do a deeper dive in it, and then there's also a way to sort of track their learning over time. So that's a way to sort of add some structure to this idea of instituting training on the job.   0:10:55.6 AS: It sounds like I would be excited to sit into that 3.5 week... Three and a half week summer institute. Like just the excitement of new teachers and of prior teachers sharing their experience. I imagine that they don't get that much time to do that during the school year.   0:11:15.7 JD: Yeah, it gets tough, I mean, unless you're really deliberate about building that into your schedule because most teachers are with students obviously the majority of the day, so we have this three and a half week summer institute for new teachers, and then we also built in at least an hour a week of PD on an ongoing basis, and then we also have eight days that are so...   0:11:35.1 AS: To the listeners out there, PD means Professional Development.   0:11:38.9 JD: Oh, right. Professional Development. Yep, Professional Development.   0:11:41.4 AS: Okay. Got it.   0:11:41.9 JD: Cheers. But you mentioned teachers are excited to share what they learn, and so this summer institute has a deliberate design on that front as well. So all teachers that are in their first and second year with United Schools Network go to this three and a half week training, and then it's about half that for more experienced teachers. But the reason we do that is because early on we got this feedback that for new teachers and the amount of stuff they're trying to download on the curriculum front, on the classroom management front and other areas is basically a blur. And then they come back after living it for a year now, they're going through that full summer institute as a second year teacher, they say, "Oh, I actually can sit at a table with the new teachers and they're actually a second teacher within the training." And that's a part of the deliberate design is you've kind of lived it, you've learned it, you've applied what you learned, and now I can come back, I'm still learning as a second year teacher, obviously, early in my career, but now I have a lot to sort of pass on during each of those trainings in addition to what they're getting from who the actual trainer is up in front of the room.   0:13:03.1 AS: Well, it's interesting because I was also thinking about a production line, like a worker on a production line doesn't say, "Okay, on my shift, we're gonna do this differently." A worker on a production line learns how that process works, how it's measured, why it's important to do it this way, so that it... How it impacts the next part of the process. So whether we talk about a worker on a production line, whether we talk about a worker in an office doing software development, the fact is is that ultimately what we really want is to standardize what we're doing and then innovate over time. It's not that we don't want an employee or a teacher to stand up and say, "Okay, I think we can improve this now. Yeah, we've been doing this for a year this way, but I see more improvements that could be done." And that's where you get into this process of PDSA and thinking about how do we improve this in a methodical way.   0:14:06.7 JD: Yeah. Well, and there's two things that come to mind. So I used to be the point person on curriculum development training. I led that training in our network for I think a dozen years. And so what I would tell the first year teachers... So I had first and second year teachers in my training every year. I would tell the first year teachers, you're gonna get a curriculum that's been built and tested over a number of years. Do not touch it across the school year. And here's the reason why. One, you're learning all these new procedures and processes, you're learning this new curriculum, and you're sort of learning it just in time to teach it to students in terms of the curriculum that you're gonna put in front of students. And all of these different stages are linked.   0:14:50.1 JD: And if you start making changes in an early stage, there's sort of this waterfall that happens throughout the entire process that you're not gonna be aware of initially. And so I tell them, wait till your second year that you have the full sort of system picture in your head of your curriculum before you start making changes. And that works pretty well, and and then you'd have the second year teachers there saying, "Yes, yes, do that, do that." [chuckle] 'Cause what he is saying is, "Basically, I learned this the hard way, or you know, I thought I could do this and what happens is, I had to... I thought I was changing a lesson and that ended up meaning I had to change a unit and then I had to change an assessment that's tied to this unit and so I didn't have that full picture." So that was one thing I'm thinking of. And another thing is, you know, we want feedback on this summer institute delivery. So many of the people that are delivering this training are senior leaders.   0:15:46.3 JD: Many have been with us for more than a decade. But even just this week we got this long feedback from a first year staff member on summer institute. And an organization can respond to that in different ways. It could be, well, "Who do you think you are sending me this feedback? You just got here." But the response to that staff member was, "This is great. School starts soon, let's... We'll wait a few weeks, schedule a time so this is still fresh in our heads, and we're gonna sort of take notes on this and think about how we could incorporate this feedback into the design of summer institute next summer." And so that's sort of the continual improvement mindset, be it... Could be at the individual teacher level, or in this case it's the whole network's summer institute that we're taking a look at, but everything is on the table for continual improvement, yeah.   0:16:35.9 AS: Well, and it raises another point, which Dr. Deming talks about. I know Toyota talks about too, in the stuff that they talk about, about being a learning organization. And what does it mean to be a learning organization? The most important thing about being a learning organization, to me, is the cumulative learning. It's not the training and we do this and we have this training and we support learning and all that, it's the cumulative learning. Like you said, we've been improving this, this process, this curriculum, this teaching process over many iterations and we've gotten it to here.   0:17:14.3 JD: Yep.   0:17:15.1 AS: The objective is to bring it to the next level.   0:17:17.3 JD: Yeah.   0:17:17.7 AS: Now, you can imagine, a way to think about that is, imagine you're a new CEO, you go in and you say, "We're throwing all that out and we're going with this." And it's like all that cumulative learning is gone.   0:17:30.5 JD: Yep. Yep.   0:17:31.3 AS: Now, it's not to say that that cumulative learning ended up in the right place. That's a whole another discussion about being in touch with the customer.   0:17:40.3 JD: Yep.   0:17:41.2 AS: And making sure that you're delivering with your cumulative learning.   0:17:44.5 JD: Yep.   0:17:44.8 AS: But if you are delivering what you're supposed to be delivering to your, you know, what your customer wants, then, then it really is a matter of how do you keep that learning in your organization? And I think that's... So your three and a half week summer institute is a great example of a training method and the response about, "Hey, that's a... We are going to get all this feedback of lots of improvements, but we're not gonna do it right now, we're gonna put that together, think about it, observe, and then try to figure out, okay, one of these is particularly good." For instance, in my case with my valuation masterclass bootcamp, I'm just about to launch my 11th bootcamp.   0:18:23.9 AS: So, and I can do my iterations in about eight weeks. Bootcamp lasts six weeks, I take two weeks off, then we do it again. And I'm trying to do as many iterations as I can. And the newest iteration, after many great iterations is we are gonna test a buddy system. And we've been designing it, discussing it, looking at how do we build this into the program with the objective that the buddy system basically helps our pass rate. In other words, the people that feel like dropping out don't drop out because they've made a connection with one individual, they're already on a team, so they got a team feedback. So that is a new, just one new learning piece that we're gonna test and then see where it ends up at the end of the, you know, of the, of the six weeks. So that's an example.   0:19:11.0 JD: Yeah, that's a really good example. And I know we talked about the, that class prior, that eight-week class and... Sorry, the six week class and how it's sort of a natural sort of PDSA cycle that you're running through each of those. So you have a lot of those cycles. You just kind of keep making it better and better, you know?   0:19:28.7 AS: Well, that's what... When I heard you talk about, we'll look at that at the next three and a half week summer institute I thought, "Gosh, does it, is that," I mean, I guess that you've got improvements that you're doing throughout the school year, that you're already determined this is the things we're gonna work on, but also you have to accept the fact that everybody's probably overloaded. And so it isn't that easy to say we're gonna improve a zillion things. And that's for the listeners out there, you know, it's an important thing to understand your own capacities in your organization and to understand the cycles that you're doing through your process. If you can speed up the cycles, then you can speed up your testing and your learning. And that's something that most of the time we'll just say, well, my cycle is my cycle, but maybe not. Maybe there's some way to speed it up, 'cause I know we used to teach the valuation masterclass bootcamp every six months, and I'm like, no, it's not enough cycles.   0:20:25.0 JD: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, I mean, being able to do those sprints like that on a repeated basis is definitely an advantage, you know. I think when I was leading that curriculum development training, so there was, it was usually a two day training, the one I was doing. And, you know, I would get some on the spot feedback. I'd say if there's something that's, I can improve to make this a better experience tell me, just write, you know, if it's something I can fix quick. That's how I handled that in the moment. And then I would have some more formal surveys and, you know, some of that feedback I could take and apply to other things that were similar workshops I was doing, you know, throughout the professional development I was leading throughout the year. And then the first thing that I did as I started making that two day session better for the next summer institute was go back through that more formal feedback that folks had left. Then I have, I have those boxes of trainings going back that dozen years, including all the feedback that I got over the dozen years. So, yeah.   0:21:25.5 AS: So let's, I think that wraps up a great discussion on principle six. And I'll just summarize a couple things from it before we move on to principle seven, which is, principle six is institute training on the job. The point is, you want to get everybody to make better contributions to the system. And training is for skills as you've talked to us about. Whereas education is maybe for the acquisition of knowledge. And training is about learning how to do a job with a particular set of tools. And the aim is to reduce variation in methods. And you talked about classroom management, you talked about instruction and you talked about the same high quality curriculum in front of the students. We also talked about your three and a half week summer institute, which is happening before the school term starts. And the value of that. And you talked about the capacity matrix where you're looking at, you know, a roadmap and trying to link specific training sessions to activities and stuff. Is there anything you would add to wrap up principle six?   0:22:26.3 JD: Yeah, it's just in that capacity matrix is, sort of begin with the end. It's, that's where we started with the roadmap and sort of then worked our way backwards to the training from that, what was the end goal, these things in the capacity matrix. And then we sort of plan backwards from there, map that back to the summer institute.   0:22:44.6 AS: Got it. And now, principle seven, leadership.   0:22:48.6 JD: Yeah, principle seven is adopt and institute leadership. And basically the aim of the leadership is to help people that are working in a system do a better job. And that's management's responsibility. And Deming here is specifically talking about shifting from that focus on outcomes or solely focusing on outcomes to focusing on the quality of learning experiences or other types of services that are being produced by the education system. I think in Deming's language, he was talking about the transformation and he was talking about this, including in the transition of managers and supervisors to become leaders. And so he was I think looking at abolishing this focus on outcome, the management by numbers, the numerical goals, performance appraisal, merit pay, and installing what he called leadership. And then, you know, he sort of operationally defined what he meant by that.   0:23:52.8 JD: But basically, you know, leadership following Deming philosophy, I think the most important thing is that leaders are responsible for creating this environment, in our case, where educators and students can have sort of genuine interest in their work and that, you know, they're supported to do it well. And I think, you know, this becomes like a mutually reinforcing activity. Meaning that if people are interested in their work and learning, then they'll wanna do it well, they're gonna accept help to do that. You know, and if we set up the conditions to help them do that well, then their interest will increase and this sort of virtuous cycle is created. But then I think in many cases we have the opposite that occurs, sort of, when we don't have this type of leadership, get this vicious cycle where people just aren't, they don't feel like they're doing a good job, their interest in work or learning plummets, and then this causes them to in turn do a poorer job, which in turn lessens interest further.   0:24:58.6 JD: And I think one of the things I think of is education sort of broadly in the United States is sort of in one of these vicious cycles. We talked about the number of new teachers that are coming into the system and then being spat out of the system each year. There's this constant churn, we're sort of in this vicious cycle where we get all these new teachers across the United States, and many of those new teachers are leaving because of dissatisfaction, not feeling like they're doing a good job, not feeling like they have been set up for success. Those types of things. And I'm convinced and that's why I wrote the book and talk about these things. I'm convinced that the virtuous cycle is more likely to occur when we transform following the System of Profound Knowledge. I think when you truly appreciate your organization as a system, you have sort of logical theories of variation and knowledge and at least a basic understanding of psychological concepts like intrinsic motivation. I think that's when you truly have a chance to transform your organization.   0:26:11.2 JD: And I talked about Dr. Deming operationally defining leadership. What was he talking, cause there's many different sort of, probably we'd have many different definitions if we surveyed a hundred people about what it means to be a leader. And there's this great resource that Dr. Deming distributed at many of his four day seminars, especially the ones closer to the end of his life called Some Attributes of a Leader. And there's sort of nine points to that really, when I go through those, they really paint a clear picture, okay, this is really what leadership means when you're following the Deming philosophy. So I think it's worth unpacking those a little bit.   0:26:56.7 AS: And do you think... I mean, where do people fall down? Where they're supposed to be bringing leadership to an organization and instead they're bringing, I don't know, something else.   0:27:11.7 JD: Yeah, something else. And maybe even people that would um, maybe sometimes display some of these attributes, I think where we often fall down as leaders is when things get tough. And that's when we actually need to double down on these attributes, these leadership attributes. And when oftentimes we sort of revert back to the prevailing system of management, 'cause it's easier, maybe maybe even get some short-term impact, but it's always worse in the long-term, and that's the problem. And these things are hard. Some people probably could pinpoint some on this list of nine that they do well and others that maybe where they struggle. And I think that's fine, but I think having this list that explicitly defines leadership within the Deming philosophy is important. So I just go through these?   0:28:11.4 AS: Yeah. Go ahead.   0:28:11.9 JD: And we can talk about... I think the first one, and we've talked about elements of all of these things, but the first one is just really whatever I'm a leader of, whether it's a department or a school or whatever, whatever business unit that I'm a leader of, I think understanding how that fits into the overall aim of the system is really, really important. How does my grade level, or how does my classroom, or how is my school, how is my school system, how does it fit into the larger system? And I think you have to know that. That's key. A second attribute would be in that recognition of where you fit in the system is that you have a responsibility to work with preceding and following stages.   0:29:02.0 JD: This is pretty easy to sort of identify in a school system. If I'm a third grade teacher, I need to work with second grade teachers. I need to work with the fourth grade teachers. And that doesn't... That type of vertical sort of work doesn't often happen in a school system. But, you know, that focus has to be on our customer, both internal and external. And if I'm a third grade teacher, one of my customers is the second grade teacher, and one of my customers is also the fourth grade teacher. I think many managers, I think sort of see as one of their primary responsibilities to motivate the people that work on their team. And I think a sort of a better frame, and this is attribute three, is that leaders should work to remove barriers to joy in work and learning.   0:29:58.4 JD: And that's a slightly different conception. Maybe it's a very different conception than, you're not trying to motivate folks. You're trying to remove things that would lead to joy in work and learning, removing those barriers, that's what your job is as a leader. I think attribute four is, you are really there when you're a leader to act as a coach and counsel, not a judge. So I think that's an easy one to default to acting like a judge when things aren't going well. And one of the things about being a leader is knowing when someone is truly outside of the system and in need of special help. And that could be an employee, a teacher, a principal, or it could be a student.   0:30:53.2 JD: It's not, when we understand variation using the sort of Deming philosophy, we're not asking are our students or our employees different, but rather are they significantly different? And that's where some of these statistical methods come in. And when you have this in your leadership toolkit, then you know what questions to ask and you also know what action to take. Sure, some students might be performing lower than others, but are they statistically significant differences? And if they are, I'm gonna react to that. I think of, there is this really great figure that demonstrate this, where you have like a bell curve and you're trying to shrink the variation of that bell curve.   0:31:44.8 JD: You're trying to move it to the right, assuming right is better performance. And then you're sort of looking, is there anybody that requires special help 'cause they're outside of that system. And then if they are, then you have to provide that. That's a responsibility of leadership. But something like a process behavior chart or a control chart can help point you toward those data points that you should be paying attention to. I think another sort of key attribute of a leader is you're obviously always working to improve teaching and learning processes. Everybody's gonna say that. But what you're doing is trying to improve those processes instead of doing the sorting, the tracking, the ranking, the grading, those types of things. So that's what I was talking about when things get hard, yout know that's what people default to because it's sort of known.   0:32:46.4 JD: Attribute seven is creating trust, which, I think that, it goes without saying, whether people do that I think is another thing. I think there's lots of different ways to do that. But a key thing when you're a manager I think is follow through. I think you don't follow through on plans, if you don't follow through on commitments, I think that's where I see a lot of leaders sort of drop the ball and people stop trusting.   0:33:17.5 AS: Let me ask you about, number four I believe was act as a coach, not a judge. What was number five?   0:33:23.7 JD: Number five was, was, I don't think I stated it really explicitly, but basically, basically using data to help them understand people and themselves. So basically using knowledge about variation to understand who, if anybody, is in need of special help.   0:33:43.0 AS: Yeah. And six?   0:33:44.4 JD: Six was, working to improve the teaching and learning processes versus relying on the sorting, the tracking, the grading, the ranking. And that could be students or rating and ranking employees too. Seven was create trust.   0:34:00.2 AS: And then seven is creating trust.   0:34:03.5 JD: Yep. I think eight is, don't expect perfection. Forgive a mistake. People are gonna make mistakes. And in fact, you wanna, part of our capacity matrix for new teachers is how do you create a culture of error with students in your classroom? And that means instead of hiding mistakes, students are comfortable, when they make a mistake, highlighting that so that we can give feedback and fix it basically. Yeah.   0:34:34.2 AS: Yep.   0:34:34.2 JD: That's learning is, you get it wrong, then you get it right. Right? But you can't do that if people are always trying to sort of protect their mistakes, that type of thing. And then nine I think is, you know, listening and learning without passing judgment on the folks that they're listening to. I think that's... Again, a lot of these things are, you know, people have heard them before. I think many people would say they do them. I think, again, in reality, [chuckle] if you got that feedback from the folks that are in your department or in your school or in your school system, you might not be doing as well on those things as you may have thought.   0:35:16.7 AS: Let me summarize this a little bit for all of us. So we're talking about principle seven, adopt and institute leadership. The idea is help people in the system to do a better job and shifting from focusing on outcomes to quality of services. And I remember when I was in university, MBO was the big thing. Now it's KPI, but MBO was management by objective. And a lot of what he, Dr. Deming was talking about is by what method? It's not just, hey, let's just agree on, what, you get the result. I don't care how you get it.   0:35:50.2 JD: Right.   0:35:50.3 AS: And then you also talked about how leaders are responsible for creating the environment. You also talked about without leadership, there's like a downward spiral. And that maybe the US is in that downward spiral. And you see that when leaders really fail is when times get tough and they gotta make tough decisions. And then finally on that, you talked about how the System of Profound Knowledge could possibly be a way out of this downward spiral and into a cycle of learning. You talked about the nine principles, number one, understand how my area fits into the larger system. Two, you need to work with the preceding and following stages. You need to understand that. Number three, work to remove barriers to joy in work. I love that. Number four, act as a coach, not a judge. Number five, use data and knowledge of variation to help people better understand. Number six, work to improve the process rather than spending your time on rating and ranking. Number seven is create trust. Number eight is don't expect perfection. And number nine is listen and learn without passing judgment. Is there anything you would add to wrap up this awesome discussion?   0:37:02.0 JD: Yeah, I mean, I think just being really deliberate with the language instead of principles so we don't confuse people. I would call those, those are attributes of a leader.   0:37:11.5 AS: Okay.   0:37:11.8 JD: Just to kind of keep that clear, and, you know, a common question for Dr. Deming, I think at his seminars, because since he railed against performance appraisal, you know, a typical audience sort of follow up question then is: "Well, how do you choose candidates for promotion?" And his typical answer was, "What better than the ability to be a leader?" And then, so what he was talking about were those nine attributes. You identify those nine attributes, those are the people that you wanna be promoting in your organization. Folks that possess those.   0:37:44.7 AS: Yes. And I would just add to that in wrapping up that, part of what you realize as you get more mature, and I think most people understand it even at a low level or starting out in a business or their career, is that no measure captures what you need. You need to make a judgment about a person as a potential leader. There's no measure that could have determined Steve Jobs' ability to create Apple. In fact, if you had measured it, you probably would've kicked him out, which they did. And then eventually he came back.   [laughter]   0:38:21.6 AS: And so...   0:38:22.2 JD: Yeah.   0:38:22.6 AS: Go ahead.   0:38:23.3 JD: It'd be a hard thing. Well, I was just gonna say, as a principal, one of the types of leaders I was choosing, it was who was gonna be the grade level chair. So that was like a teacher leader position in our building. And I knew when I worked through that process, people applied for it. And I would sort of name the grade level chair. When I didn't hear a single piece of feedback, I knew I picked the right person, because people were like, yeah, that's the person. Right? And when you get a lot of pushback, [chuckle] that's when you just sort of need to go reevaluate, does this person actually have these nine attributes?   0:38:57.3 AS: Beautiful. Well, John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for another awesome discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey, and of course, you can find John's book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work and learning," I'm gonna add in.

In this series, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz discuss principles that educational systems leaders can use to guide their transformation work. This episode covers principles 4 and 5: maximize high-quality learning and work continually on the system. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.5 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. Today is episode 12, and we're continuing our discussion about the shift from management myths to principles for the transformation of schools' systems. John, take it away.   0:00:34.4 John Dues: Andrew, it's good to be back. Yeah, like you said, we've sort of turned to this set of principles that can be used by educational systems leaders to guide their transformation work. Two episodes ago, we sort of kicked off the principles, gave a little bit of an introduction. We talked about principle one, which is create constancy of purpose. And then the last time we talked, we kind of broke down two principles. Principle two was adopt the new philosophy, and principle three was, cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. So in this episode, I was gonna sort of take on the next two, the fourth and fifth principles. So the fourth principle is, maximize high quality learning. And the fifth principle is, work continually on the system.   0:01:28.6 JD: So I thought we'd sort of kick things off with principle four, that idea around maximize high quality learning. And I think sort of... If I was gonna capture that principle in just a couple sentences, I would say, you wanna maximize high quality learning and minimize total cost of education by improving the relationship with educational institutions from which students come and to which they matriculate. So, we're thinking about a single source of students coming into a system, such as an elementary school student moving into a middle school, and seeing that as an opportunity to build a long term relationship of loyalty and trust. So that's sort of the overarching idea. And I think if you sort of look at this principle through the lens of United Schools Network, where I work in Columbus, Ohio, I think that's sort of a helpful lens. And when you think about our origin story, we started as a single middle school serving a few east side neighborhoods, near downtown Columbus. And I was the founding principal, school director of that particular campus.   0:02:55.3 JD: And at the time, we decided we were gonna open a middle school, 'cause this is the point often in a student's educational career where they fall so far behind, they often then drop out of school altogether just a few years later. So we wanted to get them in middle school. So, before we were this sort of network of schools in the school system, we were this one school that grew from serving just sixth grade over the first few years to sixth through eighth grade, right. And when you looked at these east side neighborhoods where we were located, there were 15 or so elementary schools from the city school system that formed this sort of de facto feeder pattern into our middle school. Most of those schools were performing in the bottom 5% of schools in the state. Which means when those students then matriculated to our middle school, they typically did so in... The typical kid was at least two, but more often three and even four grade levels below where they should be when they enrolled with us in 6th grade.   0:04:18.1 JD: And, while I didn't have this Deming lens at the time, I did sort of approach things from a process standpoint, from a system standpoint. But, as the middle school principal, I'm thinking about sort of all that entails to run a school and a new school at that, so we're doing all the things that come with a startup. There was no way for me to run around and form relationships with the 15 principals leading those elementary schools from which our students were primarily coming from.   0:04:54.0 JD: And so when we had this opportunity to grow from one school into a network that's now four schools, we elected to grow down into elementary schools. The point in doing so was to move towards this sort of single supplier relationship, that Dr. Deming outlined in his point four. And so now, we have two middle school principals, two elementary schools in our network, and they can work together on a whole host of sort of quality characteristics, like vertically planning curriculum across that K to eight pipeline. And, we were middle schools first and then elementary schools, so while we're getting some of our students from our own elementary schools we're also still getting students from other non-USN schools, non-USN elementary schools, but we're sort of increasingly moving toward that single supplier model. And I think that coordination is one of the ways that we can then maximize high quality learning, and the great thing about this is that we then minimize the total cost of education.   0:06:14.6 JD: And I think this is one of the important paradoxes of Dr. Deming's work, in that, as quality goes up, price goes down. Which that's sort of the opposite of what a lot of people think. In the case of schools, what we're talking about in terms of minimizing cost, a lot of that has to do with less remediation of students as they sort of increasingly come from those USN elementary schools and they're not as typically far behind when they arrive to our middle schools as they were previously.   0:06:54.1 AS: And for our international listeners, and also just for a refresher for myself. Is middle school what we... I used to call it junior high, I think I called it. But what is middle school and elementary as far as your grades and ages?   0:07:09.7 JD: Yeah, that's a good question. Middle school is six through eight for us. So sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And then our elementary schools are kindergarten through fifth grade.   0:07:19.4 AS: Got it.   0:07:23.1 JD: There's also this sort of... I think when Deming wrote his point four, his version said, "End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost, move toward a single supplier for any one item on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust." So I sort of translated Deming's framing to one that applies directly to students as they move through that K-12 pipeline. However, there's also this second component to this principle that's more sort of directly analogous to Deming's point, and it's definitely applicable to the business side of running schools. And this is the idea of ceasing dependence on price tag alone when we're selecting curriculum or technology or supplies or any number of goods and services that school systems regularly buy. I think the main ideas here, is to understand that difference between the lowest bidder and the lowest qualified bidder. And I think one of the things that Deming pointed out on this side of things was that basically price has no meaning without a measure of quality being purchased, including that after sale service. So I think that's a key point as well.   0:08:44.7 AS: When did you guys open the elementary schools?   0:08:48.6 JD: Yeah, so it sort of unfolded over time. So the first middle school opened in 2008.   0:08:55.2 AS: Right.   0:08:55.3 JD: Second middle school 2012. And then we moved toward elementaries in 2014 and 2017. But a key thing here is, when we open new schools, we sort of have a slow growth model where we typically open with just a single grade level. So they can sort of put systems and processes in place, hire staff, recruit students, that type of thing. And so it took about five years before those elementary schools were mature enough that they were actually feeding to the middle schools.   0:09:32.1 AS: So let's say 2020, 2019-'20 and then onwards, you're starting to get the students from the elementary schools, was there a significant difference? How would you describe the difference in what you received, from your elementary school versus... In other words, did it deliver on what you had hoped?   0:09:56.8 JD: Yeah, I think we have work to do there. But for the typical student that's coming from our elementary schools, one, they're very familiar with our routines, our procedures, our sort of school culture, the way that the school's run. A lot of those students often have older siblings that are either in our middle school or had been in our middle school and are now alumni. And then academically we see a difference as well, especially for those students that started early in elementary, like in K-1, 'cause we take kids at all grade levels. But for those kids that started K-1 and went all the way through our system and are enrolling now six years later or seven years later in sixth grade with us, the difference is stark. Both from a sort of student traits and responsibilities and sort of student academic side of things.   0:10:52.0 AS: And how does that changing... Ultimately what I think about... Toyota is a good example. And in Thailand here, Toyota has a huge manufacturing base. And part of what's so critical to that manufacturing base is all the supplier relationships that come with that. So they're surrounded by their suppliers and they've built great relationships with those suppliers. In a sense, you just happen to own that supplier in this case, but whether you're owning the supplier or whether a listener or a viewer is saying, "Okay, I need to build a better relationship with the suppliers that I have." The question I have in your case is, how did that change the final result at the end of middle school? 'Cause ultimately what you're trying to do is get your final output of your system to be better over time. I'm just curious, how has that reflected in what comes out?   0:11:48.8 JD: Yeah, I think it has a dramatic impact because so much of education and what a student is ultimately gonna do, is sort of... I don't wanna say determined, maybe a little bit too strong of a word, but maybe not too far off, by that sort of early education foundation. Specifically, did you learn to read proficiently. And when students were coming to us in middle school without that foundation in reading, it makes it really, really hard now that when you get to a point in your schooling career where things have shifted from being sort of learning how to read to, you are reading as a part of the learning process. And we did some intensive interventions before we had elementary schools to try to catch kids up, especially on that reading front. And those are really hard sort of interventions to sort of put in place when a kid is 12 or 13-years-old when they're getting those interventions. Not to say that they can't help, but the older the student is, the farther they've gone in their educational career, the harder that is.   0:13:02.5 AS: And I guess the majority of public educators are dealing with that all the time. People popping into their district and all of a sudden... Coming from many different sources and all of that.   0:13:16.1 JD: Yeah. Yep. And in some places that's more than others. That sort of coming and going tends to be associated with certain conditions in which the school sits and the community in which the school sits, where there's higher poverty rates, there's more movement. So one stat that jumps to mind on this front, in Columbus City schools, which is where our kids would have gone had they not come to us, were geographically within that district's boundaries. In any given year, 30%, nearly one out of three kids changes school buildings during the year, which is just an overwhelming number, an overwhelming amount of transition. That's just within a year, that's not even across multiple years. And so that's why this sort of single supplier [laughter] relationship is so important, because we're trying to push back in an opposite direction.   0:14:23.1 AS: And is there ever a chance that you could have all of your students come from your elementary program? Or is that unrealistic or is that happening or can happen?   0:14:35.5 JD: Well, right now it really can't happen, and that's mostly due to the size of our building. So in our elementary schools, there is basically two homerooms per grade level. So there is two fifth grade classrooms, let's say. But in our middle schools, there is at least typically three homerooms in 6th grade. So no matter what, right now, about a third of the kids would be new in a typical school year.   0:15:07.2 AS: So capacity matching?   0:15:09.2 JD: Yep, capacity matching. Yep.   0:15:11.6 AS: Okay.   0:15:12.1 JD: That's right. That's right.   0:15:13.2 AS: That's a great explanation of the methodology you're using. There's people who are public school teachers that may be listening to this and going, "Oh come on, I can't do that." Well, yeah, you're gonna have different challenges and limits, but you can start to build those relationships with the schools that are bringing students to you and trying to do the best that you can with that. Because we know that... What Dr. Deming taught was that fixing things at the beginning of the process is the way to do it. Because if you're trying to solve the problem at the middle or the end of the process, it just grows exponentially more complex, difficult, more costly. And that's the reason why a high quality means low cost. Wait, what? Yep.   0:16:01.0 JD: Yeah. And some public schools do this really well, and they, for all intents and purposes, already have this set up. But sometimes I've seen even in places like a smaller school district that maybe just has one elementary and one middle - high school building. I've been to a place where I have heard people say, "I never even thought about leaving our building and going to see what they're doing in the high school." And part of it I get, you're a teacher, you're kind of stuck in your classroom, it has to be facilitated for you to have a sub or whatever, but it's not an overwhelming barrier. And I think it's a very valuable exercise to have some of that cross movement between buildings. And I don't think it's actually that hard to do. And the good thing is, in most school districts there's geographic proximity, so that's not a barrier. But someone has to say, "This is important and we are gonna do this."   0:16:58.1 AS: I think it reminds me of my discussions with Bill Bellows, where we were talking about... Also on the podcast, and trying to talk about the idea of thinking beyond specification and thinking beyond... And asking the question, "How is this product or service being used by the next part of the process?"   0:17:18.4 JD: Yeah. Right.   0:17:19.0 AS: And looking forward, you find that even if you think that you're doing really well, you all of a sudden find that there is a huge amount of opportunity to improve in just that one step forward in the process. All right. Well, does that bring us to work continuously on the system?   0:17:39.0 JD: Yeah, I would just say, the takeaway here for me is developing those partnerships with suppliers. Whether it's on that sort of K-12 pipeline side, or if it's more like Deming's version of point four, where you're actually making purchases for the school system. And I think... A change in thinking for me was that the suppliers are a part of your system. Whether they're internal or external to the governance structure of your school system or your business, the suppliers are actually a part of the system. And thinking about them that way is really important. And I think both those approaches are keys to helping maximize high quality learning and then minimizing that total cost. And when I actually started to think about that, even though we didn't, again, think about it through this Deming lens early on, we have a number of vendors that sort of operate like that. Our IT vendor, our food services vendor, have been with us since day one in 2008 when we started.   0:18:42.0 JD: And you'll see their employees doing things here almost like they work here. They almost feel like an employee. So at least in certain cases, we've been able to develop those types of relationships on sort of more on the Deming business side of things as well, and I think that's just as important.   0:19:00.8 AS: There is an interesting business in the US that is a model for that. And that is... So, to talk about business aspect, a company called Fastenal, that makes fasteners and many different things that companies need. But they changed their business model many years ago to basically, rather than having a warehouse and distribution, and you order from the warehouse and all that, they actually set... They go into your factory, and they take over your whole inventory, and they run your whole inventory department.   0:19:30.6 JD: Interesting.   0:19:30.7 AS: And the benefit for you is that you don't own the inventory anymore. So you could have a million dollars in inventory in your factory, and all of a sudden that all goes onto their books.   0:19:39.4 JD: Wow.   0:19:40.2 AS: And the second benefit is that, you only have the cost of that inventory at the moment that you take it out of their system, and then put it into the operation that you're doing.   0:19:50.8 JD: Interesting.   0:19:51.2 AS: And that is this relationship, this super close relationship of that supplier actually working at your facility. And it's amazing.   0:20:05.0 JD: Yeah. This shift a little bit from antagonistic. "I'm trying to get the lowest price out of my suppliers" to, "Wait a second, I need to get the highest quality at a fair price, and I'm gonna work with you on an ongoing basis to make sure whatever I'm buying from you on an ongoing basis is high quality as it comes into my system." That's a much better way to operate than the sort of the antagonistic feel.   0:20:31.3 JD: Yeah, so I think that's a good transition point from principle four to five. So principle five is, work continually on the system. So as I was gonna sort of sum up this principle in just a couple of sentences, I'd say this one is improve constantly and forever the system of planning, teaching, learning and service to improve every process and activity in the organization, and to improve quality and productivity. It is management's obligation to work continually on the system, whether that's school design, curriculum, incoming supplies and materials, technology, supervision, training, retraining, whatever that thing is.   0:21:13.0 JD: And if you think back to when we talked about principle one, principle one and principle five are very similar, and that they both talk about improvement of the system and processes over the long-term. The distinction would be that, principle one is talking about constancy of purpose, the aim of the organization, and this in turn facilitates this principle, principle five, continual improvement of systems and processes. Sort of a key idea that you mentioned I think even in this talk is that, we have to keep in front of mind that quality must be built in at that planning and design stage of work. And I think that a lot of times in the education sector, we see teachers blamed for a lot of things that they have very little control over often.   0:22:10.1 JD: And I think one example as I was thinking of examples was when a school system selects a curriculum, they often select a curriculum for the entire system, but we don't often consider the downstream effects on teacher lessons and in turn student learning. How many teachers have had the opportunity to select their district's curriculum? That's a number probably close to zero. But there are sort of many I think components of the education system that are analogous. And I think the same is true in other sectors as well, and I think that's why Deming really harped on this idea that it's management's obligation to continually improve the system, because they're making many of these decisions that then have these downstream effects on the frontline workers, be it teachers in a school or nurses in a hospital or line workers in a production facility. And this... Oh, sorry, go ahead.   0:23:27.7 AS: I was just gonna say that I was recently teaching an ethics class at a university in Cambodia called CamED, run by a guy named Casey Barnett. And he is an American guy who started it on his own, funded it on his own, and for decades now has built this university, and he's built it around his principles and he sources his students his way. He has great relationships with... He's teaching accounting, finance, business, which is the practical things needed in a developing economy or economy that's really growing like Cambodia. But it's just that what I saw was the constancy of purpose when I went through the whole university, and then I got to know more of the students and they've attended some of my valuation masterclass course and stuff online. And then I'm just like, "Ah, that constancy of purpose, and the constancy of management gives the ability to continually improve." And that without that, with constant turnover in leadership, it's so hard.   0:24:40.3 JD: Yeah, and management is hard, leadership is hard. I think schools are facing some challenging times right now, because... And this is true in any sector, but if you're a leader or you're in management, you have to deal with these day-to-day issues of the organization, then also sort of keep your organization moving towards continual improvement. You have to put out these fires, like Dr. Deming would often say, putting out fires does nothing to actually improve your system. I think sort of the way he would frame it is that, you know detection and removal of a special cause does not improve a process at best. Fighting fires, i.e., detecting special causes, just... It's important, 'cause it does return that process back to its previous state, but that state is not where you want it to be necessarily.   0:25:48.8 AS: Smoldering.   0:25:49.9 JD: Smoldering, yeah. And where I heard this, it was sort of stated in a great book on Deming's work called The Deming Dimension by Henry Neve, who I'm sure a lot of listeners know. He said, "This means that systems leaders must strive to make unstable processes stable, and to make stable but incapable processes capable, and to make capable processes ever more capable." So you sort of start to break that down, you can start to see why being in management, why being a leader is not an easy task.   0:26:27.4 AS: One of the questions I...   0:26:30.2 JD: Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead.   0:26:31.4 AS: Go ahead. Go ahead.   0:26:32.0 JD: No, I was just gonna say this idea of never ending improvement, depending on what your mindset is around that type of thing is, it can be daunting, even for the most stalwart of sort of continual improvers.   0:26:46.0 AS: Yeah. And that may determine where you position yourself within an organization, because if you're at the top, it's your responsibility to be focused on that and building the system, which can be a bit overwhelming for some people, and they say, "Look, I'm okay being in this spot, and I'll try to improve what I'm doing in the classroom, but I may not be able to be involved in how we're improving all the systems." I wanted to end this discussion on principle five with a little bit of hope and vision of what is potential. I think about my little case. I have my valuation masterclass bootcamp online. And I'm going into the eleventh one. Right now, we're in the 10th one. And I'm just doing it every 8 to 10 weeks and it's a six week program.   0:27:34.2 AS: I want repetition, I want to practice, I want to see how I can improve. And I've seen enormous improvements by just looking at the problems, solving them, going to the next level. And in bootcamp number 10, basically, the students are valuing the same companies over the last couple of bootcamps. A company called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and then in Toyota. And so they're in groups, and they're valuing those two companies. And I was really hesitant to show them the progress of the prior students, 'cause I didn't want them to copy from there. But I've now incorporated that in the bootcamp, halfway through to say, "Alright, here's the bar. This is the minimum. This is what the last group did using all the tools that we gave them. Now, your job is to take this to the next level." And yesterday, a student posted something on LinkedIn, and that was an absolutely comprehensive takeaways of the stuff that he's been learning and applying. And it's like, it worked. It inspired them to say, we gotta go to the next level. And I just want to hear from you about when you work continually on the system, what are some of the transformations and other things that you've seen, and what's some hope for the people who are struggling in a system that needs help?   0:28:57.5 JD: Yeah, that's a really good frame. I don't know if it'll get to that level, but I think, you know, as I've sort of built my sort of Deming knowledge base and spread that here internally where I work, I think I would go back to those two tools that I talked about repeatedly. The run chart or process behavior chart, and the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. And why I'm saying that is because right now, internally, we are running one, two, three, four, at least four PDSAs concurrently right now with different teams. And people are starting to see the power of this, especially in areas where performance was struggling a bit. We put PDSAs in action just to take small steps to try to improve our system. And what's happening, whether we're running that PDSA, some of these are running for a week at a time. Some of them are running for up to three weeks at a time, depending on which area you're talking about.   0:30:02.0 JD: But what's happening is we get to that Act to decide what we're gonna do next. For example, we had to make a purchasing decision where we have, talent is a struggle right now in education. We had a platform that we were trialing for 10 days, the free version. And then we have to decide, are we gonna pay for this? And with the PDSA, you get to that Act, you looked at what happened over the weeks, you did the measures of the things that you thought were important, and that decision just jumps off the page. And so these things that people used to go back and forth about, do we do this, do we not? How do we know if this is effective?   0:30:44.4 JD: Now we have this structure that makes this decision, just like I said, leap off the page in terms of its obviousness, and the direction that we're gonna go. What are we gonna do? Are we gonna buy this thing? Are we gonna spend the money? Are we gonna put resources towards this? Both in terms of the money it costs to purchase in this case, plus the human resources that it's gonna take to manage this platform? And in this case, the answer was yes. And that's all because of the power of this way of thinking. It wasn't about holding people accountable, it was about designing a good PDSA, running it, gathering the data that was important to us, and then evaluating that together and then making the decision. And so I think once people try that a few times, they'll both sort of see how clear the decision making process can come.   0:31:36.2 JD: It doesn't mean all the decisions are gonna be easy, but it clarifies decisions. It gets you working together, and planning something that's important to you as an organization and as a team, you get to see how people think things are gonna end up 'cause they predict as a part of that Plan section. And then once people get comfortable with that tool, they start owning it, they start running their own PDSAs, and they come to you and they say, "Oh my gosh, look at this, look what happened, look what I discovered. I didn't know this was gonna happen. I'm gonna keep doing this. Can I go do this over here?" "Yeah, let's set up a plan for that." And so people start to get excited, because they build this momentum with this tool. And then you pair that with a way of thinking that Deming's philosophy gives you, and your organization just starts to operate in a completely new way. And it's this sort of combination of the tools which are important, but most importantly, this way of thinking that goes with the tools.   0:32:39.2 AS: Well, let me wrap up our discussion. We're talking about principles for transformation of school systems. And today, we talked about principle four and principle five, and that is principle four, maximize high quality learning, minimize total costs. And we spent a lot of time talking about the importance of working with your suppliers, the inputs into your system. And the deeper you can build those relationships and connections with them, the better opportunities you have to improve the quality of what you're doing, and to reduce the cost of what you're doing. And principle number five, the second thing we talked about was the idea of work continually on the system. You are operating within a system, we can see there's suppliers, there's also customers that you're supplying. Ultimately, what we're talking about is planning, teaching, learning, service, those types of things are all defined as the system of what you're doing.   0:33:43.3 AS: And I think that you made the point that ultimately, that's management's job, and it has to be done by management because it has a lot of downstream effects, as Deming has taught us that ultimately the output, the majority of the output of any system is really based on what the system's capabilities are. And so your job in management is to try to improve those system capability. And maybe a teacher may find that a bit overwhelming, but that's okay, that can be brought down to a small scale maybe in a classroom. Is there anything else you'd add to that?   0:34:16.4 JD: Yeah, I think just overarching is that we're replacing those management myths with these sound guiding principles. And that, we're kind of going through 'em, either one or two at a time, these episodes, but they are sort of a mutually supporting network of principles. And so, while we may learn these piecemeal, we wanna put 'em all together, 'cause it's really that's where the power comes from is when all of these principles are working together rather than in isolation.   0:34:45.5 AS: Well, John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. You can find John's book Win-Win, Dr. W Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on amazon.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Dr. Deming was a professor for nearly 5 decades, and while most of his examples and writing discussed manufacturing, he applied all the same ideas to teaching. In this episode, John Dues and host Andrew Stotz discuss points 2 and 3 of Dr. Deming's 14 Points for Management - translated for people in education: adopt the new philosophy and cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.  TRANSCRIPT 0:00:00.0 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. Today we're continuing our discussion about the shift from management myths to principles for the transformation of school systems. John take it away.   0:00:29.4 John Dues: Andrew. It's good to be back. I thought since we've done a number of episodes now just to do a quick recap of where we're at folks that are following along on the Deming Institute website. We're on episode 11. In episodes seven through nine I outlined those six common management myths and you just talked about the point of those three episodes was to help the education systems leaders see what not to do. We've now turned to a set of principles that can be used by these same leaders to guide their transformation work. And in the last episode, episode 10, I introduced the 14 Principles for educational systems transformation. We talked about Principle 1 which was called Create Constancy of Purpose. In this episode I'll describe the second principle which I call Adopt The New Philosophy and the third principle which I call Cease Dependence on Inspection to Achieve Quality. And I mean I think a really important point to make that I got from Dr. Deming when I think about these 14 principles is a preemptive strike. Over the course of 60 years or so of continual improvement work Dr. Deming worked with Japanese industrial leaders, governments, top companies in the United States. Maybe a little bit lesser known was that he was a professor of statistics at New York University for nearly 50 years.   0:02:06.1 JD: And in his books he not only taught the 14 Points to the leaders with which he worked but they also guided his own teaching practices as a professor. And so there was a, sort of, a short Deming quote that stuck out in regards to the 14 Points and who they apply to. He said the 14 Points apply anywhere to small organizations as to large ones to the service industry as well to manufacturing. So I think it's sort of a preemptive strike of sorts, in case people in schools would think that maybe these 14 principles only apply to industry or only apply to healthcare and other sector but they really do apply to the education sector and in fact that was, sort of, a sector close to Deming's heart since he spent like I said five decades or so in academia.   0:03:00.3 AS: Yeah I mean so it's a good point that I think when you read Deming's material or if you watch his videos there's an overwhelming amount of information about factories and businesses and all that. And there's less about service sector. There is talk in there about service sector. But so I think a lot of people that first stumble upon it start to think, "Oh, this is just for factory quality control", or something like that. And that's been proven wrong particularly the LEAN startup in the world of startups really applied Deming's PDSA cycle as an example in very much service industries so it's a good point that this applies everywhere.   0:03:42.3 JD: Yeah. And basically what I tried to do with the 14 Principles in my 'Win-Win' book was just basically just translate the language from, sort of, manufacturing or sort of, industrial language to education sector language. So I actually literally created a crosswalk where I said here's Demings Point 1 and here's how I'd frame that for school people. And so that's, sort of, what I'm taking folks through in this most recent set of episodes. So thinking about diving in here. Principle 2, sort of, the short name is Adopt the New Philosophy. The descriptor, sort of, is Adopt the New Philosophy: Systems leaders must awaken to the fact that education reform movements often lack a sound philosophical foundation, must learn their new responsibilities and take on leadership for improvement. So this, sort of, goes back to this idea of what came out of A Nation At Risk. What was the next steps? What was, sort of, the response? And what I'm saying is that was probably the wrong response and instead we need to Adopt This New Philosophy. That's what Dr. Deming is calling us to do. And that's his point too and I've translated that for education folks.   0:05:01.8 AS: And just for clarity purposes. This principle number two and, you know, what Deming's talking about Adopt the New Philosophy is a very kind of a general statement yet it's maybe a specific statement. Is he telling us to adopt this new philosophy, like generally or is he saying the philosophy of such and such, the philosophy of quality, the philosophy of constancy and purpose, the philosophy of being a learning organization? I'm just curious how you're interpreting that.   0:05:38.7 JD: Yeah I think the 14 Principles are a part of the philosophy. Really, the philosophy is the System of Profound Knowledge though. And if I could, sort of, frame the Deming Philosophy for education what I would, how I would put that is that it's really about studying and applying the System of Profound Knowledge to do two things basically. The first thing is we wanna view teaching and learning as dynamic processes that occur within a system. That's, sort of, the first frame. The second frame is understand the nature of variation of those teaching and learning processes so that we can take the appropriate action within our systems and then we're doing that so we can accomplish improvement on this continual basis. So that's the, sort of, frame I would give the application of Deming's Philosophy to the education system.   0:06:40.9 AS: So is the goal improvement, and understanding the process and understanding variation are steps we get to, of how we improve better, faster, more sustainably or how do you see that?   0:06:56.4 JD: Yeah I think that's exactly right. I think it's all of those things. It gives us the information that we need the knowledge that we need within our systems to make the changes that need to be changed on a, sort of, continual basis. And, you know, it's something that never ends. It's a process that really never ends. It's, you know, not a recipe it's not a program to be implemented but instead it's a method it's a way of thinking that allows to, sort of, continually improve our organization.   0:07:29.1 AS: One other thing I would just mention about this is that if you take away one thing... One thing we could take away is to become a learning organization. I didn't really understand that for many years, but now I really understand that in order to truly learn you have to understand variation in the System of Profound Knowledge and all of the systems stuff in order to truly learn. And then you start to realize that if you're on a mission to truly learn the amount of improvements that you're gonna be able to do is way beyond most other people most other companies competitors most other schools. Because you have... That is part of the Constancy of Purpose is learning and that, I didn't really understand that when I first got into the Deming stuff but now I see just become a learning machine.   0:08:28.3 JD: Yeah. That's what you sort of have to commit to. And I think really what the 14 Principles do is serve as this practical guide by which, you know, systems leaders can lead. It's really that guide. So those management myths avoid those things and then here are these 14 Principles that we can, sort of, follow and some of those principles like Principle 1, Create Constancy of Purpose really tell us what to do and then, sort of, other principles in the list instruct us on how to, sort of, remove barriers in creating this environment the very environment that you were, you know, talking about just now in terms of an environment that's conducive establishing a new philosophy, establishing a learning organization, avoiding barriers to those things like management by objectives. One of the points that we'll get to is "abolish management by objective". That's something we want to get rid of. And really the backbone of the philosophy is transformation from this culture of competition where I win you lose or I lose you win. And really what we want the dominant paradigm in order to, sort of, have the environment that we need to be that learning organization is to create this, sort of, win-win paradigm based on this culture of cooperation.   0:10:00.1 JD: I think, you know, especially when Deming was speaking 45 years ago, 50 years ago when he became really popular in the United States, we had a long way to go. And I think there's still a long way to go but you can almost see, well, you can see a lot of the Deming philosophy in companies today. It is just most companies aren't anywhere close to all the way there, right? And that same thing goes for school systems. I think, sort of, that this idea of win-win philosophy it is a new way of thinking for a lot of leaders. I think one of the, sort of, primary concerns which once you've adopted, sort of, this new approach is that we want to develop joy in work and learning among students, for us as staff as well, as a prerequisite to achieving the core purpose of the organization. Because when people are joyful in their work or joyful in their learning you know you've already created this, sort of, environment that you're referring to where people can learn and improve and people are gonna use data in a way that drives towards that instead of, sort of, guarding their corner of the system like we've talked about before. And I think, you know, I think when you read Deming and I think when you think about transformation of an organization from one philosophy to another philosophy that can certainly be daunting.   0:11:39.0 JD: I think I've said it on this podcast episode, one of these episodes before but this transition is not gonna happen overnight. And I think Deming said something to the effect of when it comes to transformation there's no instant pudding. This doesn't just happen instantly. I think a more realistic goal is this constant consistent movement towards the new philosophy where you're moving towards total involvement of the entire organization everybody from top to bottom and then you're getting everybody working on this continual improvement activity of all systems processes and activities, you know, within the school system. Now it doesn't mean you're necessarily, sort of, attacking every single system or every process at the same time. It just means that you're sort of equipping everybody across the organization with knowledge of the philosophy, knowledge of the methods, and then the tools that go along with those methods like the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, like the Process Behavior Chart. And you're getting everybody, sort of, working towards this common aim. And again this is, this is a process and it takes, it takes time for sure.   0:12:51.9 AS: And that's why you need Constancy of Purpose too. Because if you don't have Constancy of Purpose and you have constant change, you know, change in leadership and direction, you know, you're never gonna get there. And I think about the...so many companies that we looked at when I was first studying Deming and listening and learning, many of those companies went through a 5 year phase of implementing the Deming teachings and then they got a new CEO and he says I'm not up for that. I like this. I'm, you know, I'm up for measuring everybody's KPIs and kicking ass and holding people accountable around here. Enough of this cooperation. [laughter]   0:13:36.1 JD: Yeah I think that's a common occurrence and I think, you know, in addition to the 14 Principles there's also the five... I forget what he exactly called them Deadly sins or something like that.   0:13:52.4 AS: Six Deadly Diseases I think it was.   0:13:55.0 JD: I think it was started as five and maybe it grew to six or seven but definitely one of them was the transition of senior leaders on a frequent basis because that makes this virtually impossible to, you know, to change to a New Philosophy.   0:14:08.5 AS: So that really ties together the Constancy of Purpose and Adopting the New Philosophy because then you really see that this is a real commitment. This isn't a fad, this isn't some new tool or something like that. It's a new way of thinking that's gonna require work to get there.   0:14:28.3 JD: Yeah that's exactly right and a lot of people, sort of, associate Deming with Control Charts or something like that, which obviously again he was a statistician. He used Control Charts frequently. I think the Control Charts and Process Behavior Charts are an important tool but what's more important is this way of thinking this is really what Deming was focused on more than anything else is this way of thinking that went with understanding your organization through the lens of the System of Profound Knowledge. It's really this philosophical change adopting this new philosophy that's really what he was most focused on when he worked with governments or schools or corporations, organizations. But that was Principle 2. That's Adopt the New Philosophy. It's not easy. Takes commitment, takes Constancy of Purpose. You've got to stick with it.   0:15:21.8 JD: I think Principle 3, sort of, transitioning to that, I talked about ceasing dependence on inspection to achieve quality. And when I'm talking about Principle 3 in education I'm talking about two specific types of inspection. So I'll just, sort of, read the whole principle and then we can, sort of, unpack it a little bit. So Principle 3: "cease dependence on standardized testing to achieve quality and work to abolish grading and the harmful effects of rating people eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis. For example standardized testing by building quality into the product in the first place. The product in education systems is high quality learning." That's, sort of, Principle 3 in a nutshell. There are two, sort of, different concepts to deal with in Principle 3 and this will be probably fairly controversial for a lot of, sort of, educators but those two concepts are...   0:16:28.9 AS: Bring it on John.   0:16:30.4 JD: Standardized testing and grading. And the prescription is actually different for each of those things if you're following W. Edwards Deming's teachings. And I think that calls to attention an important point with all of this stuff this principle for sure. But all the principles. You really have to do close reading of the 14 Principles because Dr. Deming chose his words very carefully. And I think, you know, when you say, you know, stop over-reliance on standardized testing or abolish grading. A lot of people's initial reactions is probably going to be to scoff or laugh. And I think, you know, I think that's really just a demonstration of how far away they are from the standards that he demanded.   0:17:22.3 JD: So a lot of people might hear this and say oh this is fluffy stuff or something like that. He must not want real quality to exist and he was actually saying the exact opposite. So if we start with the standardized testing part, you know, when I think of... Is Deming saying that we should abolish inspection in the form of standardized tests or assessments in general? And I would say no. Of course not. And I think without assessment we are not able to answer the critical question, how are we doing? So assessments in and of themselves are useful I think. But I think we're overly reliant specifically on, sort of, mass inspection style standardized testing like in the form of state testing as the, sort of, key way that we're trying to ensure that there's quality throughout the education system.   0:18:26.0 AS: It's interesting because I'm thinking about in the case of a business, inspection is an internal activity that has happened in the past, and our objective is to get rid of that and build quality into the process and the system. But as a business, you're ultimately judged by the quality and you know, value that your product provides. And you'll instantly get the customer feedback by looking at the revenue that you're getting or not getting when you bring that product to market. Whereas in the case of education, what my question to you is, is the signal that we get from business, from the customer. Like, it's just so in your face you go start up a company, you put a million dollars in it, and you don't get any revenue. You think, oh my God, I really messed up. Or you've got a defect in something and it causes a recall and a big cost and, you know, a lot of damage to your reputation. It's just right there in the revenue numbers. But is there a disconnect in that for education? Or is there something that I'm missing in education?   0:19:42.8 JD: I don't, I don't think there's a disconnect there. One, every day a student, let's say a 10 year old student goes home and their parent says, how was school today? Do you like your teacher? Those may be a little more qualitative but they're pretty powerful, you know, 'cause you're getting this report back, every single day. In our case in our specific case where I work at United Schools Network in Columbus, we're a public charter network, and so there are no kids that are assigned to us by geographic boundaries. So we have to go out and recruit every student, sort of, in a grassroots way, knock on doors, make calls, send mail, do tours and open houses, those types of things. And so if people aren't satisfied with our school program, they literally walk out the door to another school. They have other schools they can go to. That's pretty powerful as well, that enrollment factor, that would be a little bit different in a traditional public school. But they... People do... When you think about going and buying a house, for example, one of the first things most people do is check out the school system. Or...   0:20:54.4 AS: My parents specifically, you know, looked at that when we moved to the town that we moved to in Ohio. And my dad's work was not in Ohio, it was in Detroit and other areas, but he ended up, you know, he was traveling as a salesman, but he ended up choosing, my mom and dad chose that town because of the reputation of that school. And so, yeah.   0:21:15.4 JD: Yeah, yeah. And really when you think about Principle 3 too, and specific to standardized testing, it, you know, the way I'm interpreting Deming's Principle 3 and then applying for education - it's not, it's calling for the elimination of the dependence on standardized and other types of tests as the sole measure of quality, not necessarily for their elimination altogether.   0:21:42.4 AS: What damage does...I mean, for those, there's a lot of people that may be listening or viewing that think, wait a minute, I mean, standardized testing is what it's all about. I mean, I want everybody in the school system to be tested on the same thing so I can figure out, you know, which one's doing a good job, which one's not, which students, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So just for a moment, if you could just explain why standardized testing, what are the flaws with standardized testing?   0:22:07.0 JD: Well... Well a big thing is I think there's a big difference between mass testing as an attempt to provide, you know, sort of the customer or the student or the family with something they won't complain about, and the use of assessments to provide guidance toward improvement of, you know, a learning process. And I think, you know, too often or not, we're focused on the former and not the latter, right? So I think standardized testing, let's say state testing I think can provide some useful data hypothetically, but what often happens is it gets used in all these other ways.   0:22:53.8 JD: It's sort of this mass inspection through testing, it's costly. A lot of times, you know, it's unproductive. It basically sort of sorts out sort of good from bad, but doesn't really contribute to progress, right? Just , sort of,year after year low score or the low scoring schools, sort of, score low and the high scoring schools score high, right. I think another thing, another problem with, sort of, mass standardized testing at the population level is that it sort of introduces this idea that there's an acceptable level of defectives, right? Because in most states, there's, sort of,some goal for the percent of students that are gonna be proficient on state tests. In Ohio for grades three through eight, that goal is 80% of the kids will be proficient, and that's acceptable. But then that also means that one in five students, 20% aren't meeting that standard. And that sort of, you sort of lose sight that there's [laughter] this whole bucket of kids over here that you know, you can meet the goal, but you're really leaving behind a whole sort of a significant minority of the students taking the test.   0:24:21.9 JD: I think there's also this, sort of,direct contradiction to the philosophy of continual improvement. You know, the Deming philosophy is to build quality into the process in the first place. And that quality doesn't come from this inspection mechanism. You have to go upstream to improve the teaching and learning processes. And I think something like classroom assessments are a much better tool for identifying these upstream processes. And that's kind of a cool analogous to what you were talking about. You know, in businesses where there is inspection that is happening sort of at the local level, and there's not, sort of,like a regulatory or government agency doing that work for a private business.   0:25:07.4 AS: It's interesting that you highlight the word dependence and when you talked about it earlier, and if you think about what we're being told by Dr. Deming is to focus, shift our focus from the end of the, or the output of the system to the input and the processes of the system. And I think that that, you know, helps us to frame, it doesn't necessarily mean that we absolutely no longer do any inspection and there's no more testing. But what the important thing is, is we've got to shift our focus to the beginning of the process rather than the end. And I suspect most, you know, senior politicians and government officials are just focused on the end, just get the result. Come on.   0:25:52.7 JD: Right. Right Yeah. I think, sort of, to capture this, you know, Deming said, this system of sort of make and inspect, if it's sort of applied to toast, it would be expressed sort of, you burn I'll scrape, right? So that's, we've sort of already burnt the toast, so to say, and we're scraping it by sort of saying, "Oh, well we have the state testing system, that's got how we're gonna improve things." And really alls we're doing is scraping the toast.   0:26:21.2 AS: So let's talk...   0:26:23.1 JD: Oh, sorry, go ahead.   0:26:23.5 AS: I was gonna say, I wanna hear your thoughts on grading next, but good.   0:26:28.2 JD: Yeah this is where things...   0:26:29.4 AS: You got more on standardized testing, feel free.   0:26:29.8 JD: No, no, No. This is a good segue. You know, I think in that turn to grading, it gets a little even more controversial probably because Deming didn't suggest that we merely cease dependence on grades. He said we should abolish them. And again, this is where in, sort of, credibility as a practitioner, those 50 years as a professor, he did this, he did not, he did not issue grades to his students.   0:27:00.7 JD: I think it's really worth noting here, this has nothing to do with making things easier for students. It doesn't have anything to do with low-scoring students' self-esteem. Has nothing to do with that. Instead, it's, this idea is based on this more sort of fundamental premise. And this is really key. We want students to experience success and failure on schoolwork as information rather than reward and punishment. And grades themselves are inherently about experience things as reward and punishment. And that really comes... Those ideas come from author and, sort of, social science researcher, Alfie Kohn, who many Deming practitioners and followers would be aware of Alfie's work as it relates to education and parenting and cooperation and competition and those types of things. And I think one of the things that, sort of, pulled me into this way of thinking when... I think it's in this book called Punished by Rewards. He did this... Alfie Kohn did this comprehensive review of the research literature on grades. And it really compared students who got grades to those who didn't. And he found these pretty robust differences. Three of them. So the first one is that kids who are graded tend to become less interested in the topic they're studying. I think that's really important. This includes, actually, the specific topic, as well as the, sort of, subject area more generally, such as math or writing compared you know, to students who got the identical assignment but with no grades involved.   0:29:00.1 JD: Second thing is that kids who are graded, when they have a choice to pick, they pick the easiest possible task. Because if the point is to get a high grade, it's only rational to pick the easiest book to read or the easiest assignment to do. So what that tells us is that grades, sort of, inherently lead to kids avoiding intellectual risk taking. That's problematic. And then the final thing, the third thing is that kids who are graded are more likely to think in a superficial or, sort of, shallow fashion. So they're more likely to ask questions like, "Do we have to know this?" as opposed to more thoughtful questions about the content itself. So...   0:29:41.7 AS: And just to highlight, is that book called Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning, and What to Do Instead?   0:29:50.3 JD: No, this is Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards."   0:29:52.9 AS: "Punished by Rewards." Okay, that's another book that he did a forward to. Okay, I see.   0:29:57.7 JD: Yeah.   0:29:57.9 AS: Okay, "Punished by Rewards." I'm looking for it. And I know everybody could search for that too. So, keep going.   0:30:03.5 JD: Yeah. And it's got a longer subtitle about gold stars and things like that. But I think fundamentally, it's this displacement of the, sort of, core priority from learning to the grade that's at a heart, that's at the heart of both Deming and Alfie Kohn's philosophy in this area. I think Deming went as far as to say that the specific losses from grading practices are "unknown and unknowable, but likely catastrophic." [chuckle] So he didn't mince words there. So just sort of recapping that one, it's you know cease dependence on standardized testing to get to quality. And then he is saying abolish grading, because it does so much to put kids on the path to, sort of, gaming the system, shifting the focus from the learning itself to trying to get the reward that comes with a high grade or this thing or that thing that's handed out as a reward for high grades.   0:31:15.0 AS: Got it. "Punished by Rewards."   0:31:16.6 JD: "Punished by Rewards."   0:31:16.7 AS: It's the 25th edition that's come out, "The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes."   [laughter]   0:31:24.0 JD: Yep, that's the one. That's the one. It's a heavy read. It's worthwhile. It's a good read. It's... Yeah.   0:31:30.2 AS: It comes as an audio book too, so that could be, read by the author. So, interesting one.   0:31:35.3 JD: Absolutely.   0:31:35.8 AS: I'm gonna check that out. All right.   0:31:37.3 JD: That's a good one. It's a commitment.   0:31:40.1 AS: So how do we wrap this up?   0:31:43.2 JD: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think again, I think a key thing to, sort of, understand is, sort of, we're studying these 14 Principles, one or two at a time. But anybody listening to this, I think it's really important not to lose sight that these things are mutually supportive. It's a System of Principles, and you have to have all 14 connected together in addition to the System of Profound Knowledge. That's why this gets so hard. You have to understand all of this. And you can't just put it together like a recipe or, you know, pick this one. I can get behind ceasing dependence on standardized testing, but I can't get behind abolishing grading, right? You can't do it like that. You can't disconnect these things. They're all sort of tied back to the underlying philosophy.   0:32:38.3 JD: So I think that's a really important thing. And, you know, because it's not a program or, you know, a project to be implemented, it really requires a, sort of, neverending commitment to both learning and quality. But it is discontinuous. You don't have to do everything at once. You can't do everything at once. Instead, what this allows you to do when you start to understand some of the methods is you start to understand, okay, what is our system capable of on any number of fronts? And then we can set more realistic goals together to, sort of, step towards improvement, real quality. So that's, sort of, what I would take from this entire distillation of the 14 Principles.   0:33:27.2 AS: And I would wrap up by saying, you know, there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that most people don't see. [laughter] There's... We see what's in front of us, but the truth is, by starting to adopt the principles, what's happening is you're just trying to make a transformation. And part of that transformation is that you're seeing the opportunities in the world that you didn't see in the past. And conventional thinking, what we've been taught in the past has given us our perspective. But when you start to remove the blinders and say, "what would happen if we remove grading? What would happen if we ceased dependence on standardized tests?" And we said, "We are gonna look at other ways of doing this."   0:34:09.6 AS: What would happen if we really started to adopt this philosophy and the System of Profound Knowledge to really set a long-term direction? What you are gonna find is so much unfolds. And so today's discussion, just to kind of wrap up, adopting, Principle 2, adopting the new philosophy, talking about the teaching process, understanding variation with the ultimate goal of improving, and improving the outcome for students. And ultimately that's a transformation that your organization can go through. The other one is Principle 3, which is ceasing dependence on inspection to achieve quality.   0:34:51.2 AS: And you really focused in on: hey, standardized tests and grading, which I think is a challenge for everybody to think about. If you are saying that so strongly, and Deming was saying that also there's gotta be something there, right? And ultimately, as you said, the product of education is high quality learning and, it doesn't say, completely get rid of any kind of tests or any kind of assessment. But I think that what you are also trying to get us to do is look at the beginning of the process and then use feedback that we are getting through tests and assessments to go back and improve the beginning of the process. And ultimately, I think, I would end my summary of what you said with, of this discussion with what you said about, that you want students to experience success and failure as information, not reward and punishment. Anything you would add to that summary?   0:35:49.0 JD: Yeah, the only thing I would say is, a disclaimer. I certainly have not figured this all out, and I work in a system and we have not abolished grading, for example. Because you, another thing you have to do is you have to design a replacement that has to be a part of the process. So in the book, I suggest some questions. I don't suggest necessarily an alternative system. I haven't got to that point with grading, but I have a series of questions people can ask to start to think about what their grading policy is. So it's a process, I'm not, I definitely don't have it all figured out. I'm still working on it.   0:36:26.4 AS: Yeah. And, I'll just wrap up that last bit right there and say that if you were in your own environment where you weren't under government regulation or you weren't required to do this or that, you don't have to have a replacement. So for instance, in my case, in my coffee business, we just heard so much negative about the performance appraisal system that eventually we just, like, we are gonna stop and people ask, "well, what are we gonna do instead?" And I said, "I don't care what we are gonna do instead." This is, we've already evaluated that this is bad. Everybody's saying it, we know it, we've learned that, we've seen it internally. So our first job is to stop what is not working. Now, it would be a dream if I could replace it with something amazing that is working, but wouldn't we all already have that? So sometimes we are caught into this system that this thinking that we have to have a substitute or new way. And that's not always the case. But when you are under a lot of constraints, then, you are kind of forced to that. So I just wanted to open people's minds to that. And, anything you would add to that before I close?   0:37:38.4 JD: No, that's really interesting. I... I'd love to hear more about how that's gone since you guys did that.   0:37:44.1 AS: Yeah, it's okay. We never really done a replacement. We did it a long time ago and we never really...   [overlapping conversation]   0:37:48.6 JD: That's cool.   0:37:49.5 AS: So our, I mean our replacement is feedback, coaching, sitting down, having meetings and, but we don't, and when it comes to compensation, we came to some, different conclusions that we wouldn't compensate people for their individual performance. The compensation would be related to the performance of the company with a very clear system of how the success of the company comes up in additional profit and how that's allocated to each person based upon, first their salary. So there's a market component, the market rate component, then based upon their years of service, which we want to reward, and then based on a fixed amount so that people who aren't making the biggest salaries in the place still always get something, that's meaningful to them. So there's lots of alternatives and, let's keep thinking about it. And that's, I think what you bring to the whole Deming sphere is to start thinking about that in education.   0:38:48.6 AS: So John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. Also, you can find John's book Win-Win, Dr. W Edward Deming, the system of Profound Knowledge and the Science of Improving Schools on Amazon. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work" and that counts in education.

David and Andrew discuss the three types of power that leaders have: authority, knowledge, and persuasion. David also explains where the current style of "command and control" management comes from and what a nearly failed family vacation can tell us about power. 0:00:02.7 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I am continuing my discussion with David P. Langford, who has devoted his life to applying Dr. Deming's philosophy to education, and he offers us his practical advice for implementation. The topic today is the Three Power Rangers and Their Sources of Power for Improvement. We are now on item number seven on the list that was given to us by Dr. Deming in the book, The New Economics. It's called, the title of the list is called Role of a Manager of People. This is the new role of a manager of people after transformation. For those of you who have the third edition, this is on page 86, and for those with the second edition, it is on page 125. 0:00:56.7 AS: So now let's get into number seven. So we're talking about the manager after transformation. He has three sources of power. Number one, authority of office. Number two, knowledge. Number three, personality and persuasive power or tact. A successful manager of people develops number two and three, that is knowledge and personality. He does not rely on number one, which is the authority of office. He has, nevertheless, obligation to use number one, as this source of power enables him to change the process - that's the equipment, materials and methods to bring improvement, such as to reduce variation in output. Dr. Robert Klekamp says "He in authority but lacking knowledge or personality must depend on his formal power. He unconsciously fills a void in his qualifications by making it clear to everybody that he is in a position of authority. His will be done." David, take it away. 0:02:02.5 David Langford: Okay, that's great. So this is one of my favorite points, which has three subset points or Power Rangers, sources of power for improvement. And I've used this with managers around the world for the last 40 years. And in some cases, they just drop their jaws and they're just amazed at how simple this is. But the more you think about it and realize what people, managers of people are not doing, it gives a roadmap about: what do you do? How do you do something? And I get that question all the time from superintendents and principals in my field of education, and people that do have a formal position. Then they wanna know: well, how do I get these people to do stuff, make things happen? 0:02:58.2 DL: So, before we get into each of the three Power Rangers, I wanted to give a little bit of context too, because I wanna remind everybody that, Deming lived through World War II and was a part of the quality improvement effort for World War II. And what happened during World War II is that a lot of the manufacturing was being done by women in the United States especially. And so when the war ended, you had all these military people coming back to corporations and moving into top management positions, and basically the management style that they brought with them was military. And so that's where you got phrases like, "My way or the highway," and, "You're not getting paid to think. You just do what I tell you to do and everything will be fine." 0:03:51.5 AS: Attack that hill. 0:03:53.1 DL: Yeah, right, which was totally opposite to the whole manufacturing thing that had been going on during the war and was really the key to the war machine was being able to produce huge amount of military items in a very short period of time. 0:04:09.3 AS: Well, and also when you think about that, David, it's interesting to think about the patriotism and the commitment to a cause that those women went into those factories to do. And so when it was all done and the cause was met, the challenge was met, then to be faced with that, it's like, "Wait a minute, we lost something here." 0:04:30.9 DL: Yeah, and then I remember Deming talking about it one time at a conference and stuff and talking about, basically, in those factories, women liked to get together and talk about what was going on, and their performance and everything that was happening in the factory. And then when the men came back in, they said, "No, we're not gonna have groups or teams or anything like that. You're just gonna do what I would tell you to do, and if you don't like it, then find someplace else to work." One of the phrases I always remember Deming used to say was that: "pretty soon you're left with only the people who can't get a job someplace else." 0:05:14.0 DL: And I've found that to be so true in every profession that I've worked in or helped people with, etcetera, and have... So it leads us to number one, your formal position. So yeah, you have a job. You're the CEO, you're the principal of a school, you're a headmaster, you're whatever it might be. You got the job, right? And so with that comes formal position that you need to be able to...you have to do stuff and you have a job to do. And you may even be given goals by a board or something that it's your job to make this happen. Well, the question is, how do you make it happen? If it was just so simple that a new boss could come in and just start bossing people around and tell them what to do, and then they all do it and things get better, then we wouldn't actually need any of this Deming stuff, right? 0:06:13.6 DL: But it's not so simple as being able to do that. And basically what Deming is saying in this point too, is that if you act like that and you use your formal position to make change, basically, you're not gonna be around long, because pretty soon the people that work for you are gonna start to kind of revolt, and either they'll find other jobs or the pressure will become on you to get out and get somebody else in there. This is also the reason that some boards think improvement means, we'll just hire somebody else. Well, that doesn't work either. I'll never forget a superintendent of a huge school district that I worked with, and I had asked him, when we started working with him, I said, "Well, what's been your method of improvement?" And he very looked at me very clearly and just said, "Well, we fire people." 0:07:17.3 AS: That's the Jack Welch School. 0:07:19.8 DL: Yeah, exactly. 0:07:20.3 AS: Take the bottom, bottom half or the bottom quarter or the bottom 10% and make sure you're firing them often. 0:07:25.8 DL: Yeah. But that's means that you're also in that category too, right? To improve your position, all we got to do is fire you and find somebody else in that position. But are you finding somebody else with the exact same philosophy or are you actually looking for somebody else that has a different philosophy? And I think that's really what Deming is talking about here, is that, hey, if you want to stay around a very long time, yeah, it might be your formal position, but don't use that unless you absolutely have to. I often tell managers, if suddenly there's a fire in a building, you're not gonna get a bunch of people together and have a meeting and say, "Okay, what do we do? And which way should we go?" And things like that. You're probably gonna use your formal position to take charge and say, "Let's get out of the building," etcetera. But then very quickly, you should get people together to say, "Okay, how could we have done that better? And how could we work through that and improve that whole process?" 0:08:31.6 DL: And so that's where I think point number two really comes in, is that, do you have knowledge of a different way to manage, different way to think? And that's all Deming, about statistics and understanding process analysis and understanding how people work together, and do you understand how to do Plan-Do-Study-Act - the PDSA process - to improve something? And so you're using your knowledge of theory and background to improve something. And the irony of that is, when you concentrate on using your knowledge to do stuff, you actually gain authority. Just 'cause people start to look up to you as, oh, he or she, they have a process of improvement and they just stick with it. Anytime that something comes up, it's never blaming people. It's always looking at what is the process? What's happening? Let's use a few tools. Let's analyze what's happening. Let's look at a flow chart of the process and let's improve the process. That's knowledge. 0:09:40.4 AS: So the people want to follow you rather than people must follow you. 0:09:46.6 DL: Yeah, that's a good way, it's a good way to put it. Exactly. So, I think of the three, probably that's most important, right? 0:09:57.9 AS: Yeah. 0:10:00.6 DL: And the other thing about these three points is that, maybe you're working in an organization, maybe you're just a teacher. I say just, maybe you're a teacher in a school, and there's maybe 200 teachers, and you see that things are not going well. What can you do? Well, you're not the person in charge, right? And if you just march into the headmaster or the principal or whoever and start telling them what to do, you're probably not gonna be around. But what can you do? You can use your knowledge of improvement. And through that process, you actually become very powerful, because lots of people wanna work with you, 'cause every time we do, we get things done and we look at problems differently. And then pretty soon, your boss is coming to you when problems arise or when process improvement is necessary and saying, "Hey can you help here? Help us work through this problem?" And that's a level of power that's for change or improvement that is significant, if you think like that. 0:11:14.2 AS: I was thinking about, if you're a young person going into the workforce, you don't have authority. I mean, you may be given it in a small position. I was a supervisor at Pepsi when I first started, so I had a certain level of authority, but there's no way I could use it when all of my work... All the guys working for me had been there 20 years or whatever. 0:11:33.7 DL: Yeah, exactly. 0:11:34.8 AS: And do it would be foolish for me to do that. And so, I definitely used my personality and I didn't have much knowledge, so I had to try to acquire knowledge, which was making me...I took a note and just thought about, to be able to use knowledge as an a form of management, you've gotta acquire it, and it comes through your own acquisition plus also hiring people who...you can acquire knowledgeable people that are around you that can help to solve things. And then as I started, and in my case, David, what we were doing was we were filling Pepsi trucks every night, and they were all wrong. So the drivers in the morning would come in and they'd have to waste a lot of time counting their trucks, counting what's on their trucks, and then going back and getting what was missing. 0:12:24.3 AS: And I had to then develop...I had to then acquire knowledge of why were we making these mistakes? Which one on my staff was doing really well? How could we learn from that? And how could we do it so that we could lock those trucks and guarantee those drivers that that truck was accurate? And it took me many months to get to the point where I acquired enough knowledge to be able to then have the authority to go, "All right, now we've done all of this. Now, this is the way we're doing it from all that we've learned." So anyways, this is just me rambling, but that was just something that I thought about. 0:13:00.9 DL: Yes. No, that's a good... That's a really great example. That's a great, great story about that. And I'm sure that it took a while for the drivers to trust that it was actually right. 0:13:14.7 AS: I mean, I had to negotiate with them, and I'd tell them, "Look, if you find a problem out there, we're gonna fix that," and blah, blah, and all that, but then they were like, "Well, if I find a problem out there, I don't have the product to sell, so it has to be right," which basically it was, there's a lot of teaching actually involved in that to help everybody understand. 0:13:33.9 DL: Yeah, exactly. So then point number three is about personality. And so, you probably have worked for people, if you've had several jobs, everything from delivering papers on up to a current job you may be in now, you probably worked with people that are just really great people to get along with, right? And that's a source of power. I mean, they get things done because they're just really nice people and supportive, and they just have a really great personality about how to work and what to do. And I can visually see people in my mind that I worked with over the last 40 years that, just great people like that. But it's not enough, because you might be a really great person to work with. "Joe is really a great person to work with, and he's really fun and everything else, but he never gets anything done." Because he doesn't have the knowledge of basically the Deming philosophy about how to get stuff done, right? 0:14:45.7 DL: So what Deming's talking about here is that these are the three Power Rangers, the three sources of power, that if you wanna get something done and move forward and improve something, really you have to think about it as an inter-relationship of parts to the whole, of these three areas working together. So if you start concentrating...and the explanation in the following paragraph, he talks about, well, you don't have any knowledge and your personality stinks, and so what you rely on is your authoritarian position just to tell people what to do, you won't last long and also you're not gonna improve things. Things are not gonna get better when you do that. So you may have a formal position, but he talks about concentrate on two and three, your knowledge and your personality, and you will start to see a major transformation. 0:15:44.8 DL: Everybody knows you're the boss. You don't have to go around and tell people you're the boss. By virtue of the formal position, you have that. And I always take these things down to a teacher in a classroom. A teacher, that's a formal position that a teacher has. I have authority over these students during this time period, right? And I've known teachers that that's all they concentrate on, is the authority. And again, we've talked before about oftentimes, especially in like grammar school or primary school or elementary school, you're physically bigger than them and so you use that as part of your authority, that, "I'm the boss here. You do this, out you go." Well, even very little kids don't respect that. 0:16:42.1 DL: I think I told a story one time of 5-year-olds testifying for a state board of education, and they were so amazing explaining all these wonderful things that they were doing in their classroom and collecting data and improving stuff. And one of the board members said, "Well, where's your teacher when all this is going on?" And this 5-year-old, without hesitating, grabbed the microphone and said, "The teacher's not in the closet, you know." And as soon as I heard that, I thought of these three points. That little person knew they had been coached and mentored and taught a process of how to work together and improve that classroom, and the person that he looked up to was the teacher. So even at 5 years old, these things come in to play in a very real way, so. 0:17:41.6 AS: I would like to bring this back to constancy of purpose for a second, because...and I wanna think about, there's a book I recently read by Richard Rumelt, which is called Good Strategy Bad Strategy, and it's an excellent book about setting corporate strategy. But he talks about how businesses kind of move in waves, where you have a decentralization period of time where you're expanding and your giving authority. And then, basically the organization can lose focus, and then it's gonna require the authority of the senior management to say, "Okay, we have to, at some point, restructure and refocus this," and then you rely on more centralized, and he was just talking about the waves of that. And then I was thinking about the authority, from a positive perspective, is the role of the leaders of an organization, of the school, of a business, the role of those leaders is to set that direction. 0:18:37.5 AS: And you do have to claim authority or else you can't...that's what I also liked about what I learned from Deming when I first started learning, is that you can't just go, "Okay, what do you guys think our direction should be?" I mean, that is a fun question, but ultimately, as a leader, you got to really make sure that the constancy of purpose and the aim is there, and that sometimes requires what I would call good authority, authority coming from a knowledgeable and experienced perspective, but there must be authority. 0:19:07.3 DL: Right. Well, you could be the manager that comes and says, "Look, we need to reestablish our constancy of purpose. So let's talk about some ideas about how we can go about that and that are different than what we've done before, because obviously that's not working. So let's work together to figure out a good pathway that we can make that happen." So that's using your personality to run a meeting and get what you need to have happen, but you're bringing people with you instead of doing stuff to them, so. 0:19:39.2 AS: Yeah, I have one little story to tell about this authority concept, is that in our coffee factory many years ago, my business partner Dale was sitting in the office up above the roasting area and he started to smell smoke. And roasting coffee has... We have roaster fires that happen in the roasting machine. And basically, he went rushing down to realize that a fire was raging in the roasting machine, particularly in the chimney, and was getting down into the machine. And so the first thing he did is he just started yelling, "Everybody out!" And he got everybody out of that building first thing, except for one or two men that were there working. And with one of the guys, he said, "Grab that little hose," and he's got this little hose that they had to try to cool down the plate that he had to unscrew all these screws on. And he told the other guy, "Get up to the top of the building and start pouring water down the chimney of this roaster to start putting this fire out." 0:20:49.6 AS: And then they eventually got the whole thing out. But it required authority at the time to save the factory and to save the lives of the people. And so authority is necessary. It's just that that authority came at a time of emergency. Also, the other question is, is it good authority? There are people that give really bad advice in the middle of an emergency. And so, you know... 0:21:14.2 DL: Yeah, but then, points two and three come into play, personality and knowledge, because the very...soon as that crisis is over, the very next thing that guy should have done is bring everybody in and say, "Okay, what do we do to make sure this never happens again?" 0:21:31.8 AS: Which is exactly... 0:21:31.9 DL: Yeah, and if it does happen, what's going to be our process? 0:21:38.7 AS: Which is exactly what happened. And they analyzed why it happened and it was because they hadn't been maintaining the machine by the schedule that they had set. So they had to set up a better schedule to make sure that all of the husk that's coming off of the coffee, the chaff, is taken out on a daily basis and all clean. And so, we've never really had a major fire like that, and that's been, probably be 15 years ago. 0:22:00.3 DL: Wow. No, that's really a great example. So if you have a crisis, my advice to managers always is get through it. And then as soon as you get through it, bring everybody together to just say, "Okay, how do we make sure this never happens again?" 0:22:15.6 AS: Yeah, it's the balance between short-term and long-term. Last thing, I want to just highlight something that you talked about at the beginning that many people may not really understand is that, that workforce change that happened after World War II. And this is something that shaped a lot of Dr. Deming's observations. And that is, the estimates are that there was about 4-5 million American men who came back from Europe after World War II. And we know that there was a large amount of women in the workforce there. And so about 4-5 million men was about 3-4% of the 140 or so million population of the US. So, it wasn't a small number, but if you actually look at the labor force of the US, it was roughly 50-60 million of that 140 million that were in the labor force at the time. So we're talking about 7-8% of the labor force. 0:23:11.4 AS: And so this wave of command and control men who had been trained through boot camps and all of that, of command and control, it kind of explains why Dr. Deming railed against what then started happening was that all of a sudden, the joy was just destroyed. The aim that the women in particular that came to these factories producing, that aim was kind of demolished by these marching men that came in. So any thoughts on that, David? 0:23:43.3 DL: Well, in wartime, it's just constant crisis management. That's all it is. And that's why the military relies so heavily on chain of command and who's in authority and who's in command here and all those kinds of things, because you're just trying to survive a situation. But when you're not in wartime, that's the time to actually improve processes, get things done, understand a different way to work and operate. But even in those kinds of situations, military commanders that concentrated on two and three, knowledge and personality, got a lot more done and saved a lot more people than just "do it my way" kind of thing, so. 0:24:29.9 AS: Yeah. Well, in wrapping up, let's just now revisit what we've been talking about, and that is, ultimately, it's authority, knowledge, and personality. And these are the three factors that Dr. Deming is talking about. And ultimately, we want to develop personality and knowledge, and then ultimately that leads to higher authority. And the idea of command and control type of authority is only really useful in times of emergency, but most of the time, you need to use the others. Anything you would add to that? 0:25:10.0 DL: Yeah, that's a perfect way to think about it. That's a great, great wrap up to it. And Deming talked a lot about business, but I always gonna wanna bring it back that this applies to anything, a classroom, a family. If you're treating your family like that, you have a different kind of problem. And I don't know if I've told this story, but I have five children and I live in Montana. And so we had a really bad snow year, one year, and there was, just terrible in February, just so much snow and everybody's sick of it and everything else. So my wife and I dreamed up this scheme that we would get tickets to take all the kids to California and go to Disneyland and all these great things, but we wouldn't tell them. We would just get up in the morning like we're getting ready for school. 0:26:01.9 DL: And so we're sitting around the table and my wife says, "I'm sick of this snow. I'd like to get out of here, and who else would like to get out of here?" And the kids are all like, "Yeah, I would like to get out of here. When can we do that?" And she said, "Well, our plane leaves today at 11 o'clock, so here's a list. Go pack these kinds of things." And they were like "Wow, where are we going? What's happening? This is so exciting." And we didn't tell them anything, so they had to figure out when they got to the airport, where the plane was going. And then they said Orange County, and they, "What? Orange County? What's in Orange County?" 0:26:39.6 AS: Oranges. 0:26:39.8 DL: So, they figuring all that out. So we just thought we were so clever using our position of authority to do this. And after about three days, we are sitting around a dinner table and the kids are all kind of moping and we'd been taking and spending money going to Disneyland and all this great stuff in Southern California and all these wonderful things, and they liked it, right? And I said, "Gee, what's going on? You guys are just tired or just all kind of silent and kind of moping and everything else? And didn't you like what we did to today?" "Oh, yeah, that was okay," and da, da, da. And then finally, one of my daughters said, "You know, we talked about it and we just want to go to the beach," because they'd never seen the ocean. 0:27:29.3 DL: And I was like, "Oh, these three points," right? Yeah, I had the position of authority as father and I could make this decision and spend all this money to do these wonderful things, but if I just used some personality and knowledge and asked them to begin with, "Hey, if we go to California, what would you really like to do?" "Hey, we'd like to go and hang out at the beach 'cause we don't have an ocean." I could have saved thousands of dollars and lots of headache if I just had a little bit of personality and knowledge certainly in the situation, so. 0:28:02.5 AS: What a great story. And kids can play on the beach for weeks. I know. 0:28:03.9 DL: Oh, yeah. 0:28:04.1 AS: I was young, so yeah, that was crazy. 0:28:09.1 DL: That's what we did. The rest of the trip, we canceled everything and we just went to the beach every day, and they were happy as could be. 0:28:13.5 AS: And it's easier on you. 0:28:15.7 DL: Yeah. 0:28:17.7 AS: Yeah. Well, David on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. Listeners can learn more about David at langfordlearning.com. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Learning Deming is like seeing the world through a different lens. In this episode, Bill Bellows uses various examples to show us how powerful that new vision can be.  TRANSCRIPT 0:00:03.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today is Vision Therapy. Bill, take it away. 0:00:29.9 BB: Welcome back, Andrew. Yes, I wrote an article, gosh, maybe 10 years ago now for the Lean Management Journal under the title Vision Therapy: Shift from Big Problems to Great Opportunities. And in the article, I talk about vision therapy - as getting glasses is one form of vision therapy or perhaps you need surgery on your eyes. I also talked about therapy our son once went through which is hand-eye coordination. And all of that is leading up to a vision exercise I put together 1998 timeframe and was inspired by a number of things. One is I had read a book written by David Kerns, former CEO of Xerox, and it's called 'Prophets in the Dark.' And he shared a story in there of a senior executive who had come from Ford. And he said, this guy named Frank Pip, who went on to become an outstanding leader within Xerox. If there was... I get the feeling if there was a hall of fame within Xerox, David Kearns would be in it. Frank Pip would be in it. 0:02:02.0 BB: And quite likely Barry Bebb, who's a mentor of mine, would be in it. And others, and... Anyway, relative to Frank Pip: Pip started his career at Ford and he got to the point of being a plant manager for the Ford final assembly plant. And there was an account he gave to Kearns of whenever they did final assembly of automobiles, rubber mallets were used to bang the mating parts together. They didn't quite fit. And every now and then, two parts would go together without a mallet. And the Ford, at Pip's plant, they called the parts that assembled without a mallet Snap-fit - everything else required mallets and mostly it was mallets. But every now and then there'd be Snap-fit. And then he explains how they, Pip was inspired to go off and buy competitor's cars for the purpose of buying them, taking them apart, putting 'em back together. And unfortunately, Pip died a few years ago, and I... And it never dawned on me to reach out to him. I thought by the time I heard of him, it was maybe too late then, it turns out I had plenty of time to reach out to him. So I don't know what inspired him, but I get the feeling he was routinely buying competitors' cars, taking 'em apart, putting 'em together, just alike, and they assembled just like theirs, just like theirs, just like theirs. 0:03:26.7 BB: And then there was a pickup truck they took apart, put together, and never used a mallet. It was, in Ford's language, 100% Snap-fit. And Pip was so astounded by the results he had the assembly team take it apart again and put it back together again 'cause he couldn't believe it was a 100% Snap-fit. Well, when he found that it was 100% Snap-fit twice, now he thought, "Holy cow," he calls up corporate, had someone come out from Dearborn, which was Ford's corporate headquarters, and I don't know if it was his boss, whoever the person was, came out very, very senior. And he says, they met with the team. The team's answering his questions. And as I explain it to people, you can imagine what it's like when somebody from corporate comes out. That's typically in my experience, somebody coming from corporate that's either, they're there to celebrate something or it's a bad day or it's a routine, but it... Anyway, it's a big deal for him. And as Pip's account was when the plant manager, when this executive came out from Dearborn and heard this account first hand, blah, blah, blah, his comment to the team was "The customer will never notice the difference." 0:04:38.1 BB: And in the book it said Pip was so frustrated with that attitude that he quit 'cause he thought, "We have uncovered something and this guy is treating it as no big deal.” Well, then I point out to people that was the late '60s and which was at the beginning of Ford, I'm sorry, of Toyota selling cars in the States. It was a Toyota pickup truck. So I just... I shared this story in part for this term, Snap-fit. Well, then in the late '90s I was teaching a graduate class in quality management at the Kellogg School of Management, Kellogg Business School, Northwestern University, which I checked very recently. It's the number two business school in the United States. And I'm teaching a class there. Through some interesting occurrences, I was invited to teach this class there. And I wrote up this contrast between the very simple black and white model. And we've been talking black and white models and I was using a black and white model of organizations which were about continuous improvement versus black and white thinking in that kind of contrast. And I gave them pairs of words and I said... 0:06:16.5 BB: You could have "good versus bad" - is one model. What I was showing 'em is, is black and white words versus continuum words versus relative words. I said, there's, let's see the good versus bad, and then that would be a black and white. And I said, "If you take the good versus bad and put it into a continuum, what would it be? And people would joke, "Gooder." And I said, "Well, faster, it could be tall versus short - taller, cheap versus expensive - cheaper." And I was using those pairs, getting them a sense of relative thinking versus black and white thinking. And I put out the word Lean, L-E-A-N and I said, "Let's say you don't know anything about the word. In which category does this word apply? Does it fit into the black and white mold or the continuum mold?" And a first of them would say it's shades-of-gray thinking. And I said, "Well, why?" And they come up with explanations and finally one guy says, he says, "It's black and white thinking." And I said, "Why?" He says, "There's no 'er' in the end." 0:07:36.4 BB: Lean, Lean. It's right? And then there's a woman who pushed back on that. And she said, "No, I disagree." She said, "You can continuously eliminate waste." And I said, "How far are you gonna go with that?" And she said, "Until there's no waste." And I said, and I was trying to point out is, well then we're done. I said, "Where is the continuous improvement, the continuum thinking behind being done?" And I said, [laughter] what'd I tell her, saying to her, I said, "So if you're done, well then what do you do?" She said, "Well, you continuously eliminate waste until you're done." Well, then I said, "Well, describe to me what an organization looks like that has no waste. Is what does it look like?" She says, "I don't know." Well, I think those two things inspired me in a class later that year, this is 1998, to throw out as an exercise, a vision, and I call it vision therapy exercise. 0:08:38.0 BB: And I said to them, "Yeah, I want you to take a piece of paper, divide it into half, into half, left and right, and then top and bottom. So there's four quadrants." And I said, "Label on the left hand side Blue Pen for Blue Pen Company. The right hand side for Red Pen as in Red Pen Company." And I held up, I would have these transparency markers. I had eight different colors. And I pulled out one, which is blue. And I said, "Imagine each of you have recently visited a company which makes blue pens, only Blue Pens. And every week I'd buy one that costs a dollar." And, I pulled out a Red Pen. Why red? 'cause I wanted something the other end of the spectrum. So I had eight different colors to choose from. So one was blue, one was red. Later somebody said to me, "Why did you pick blue versus red?" 0:09:31.2 BB: And I said, "Well, Rocketdyne was owned by Boeing at the time." And when I looked at the colors, you know a lot of the, advertising the logos of Boeing were blue and white. And I thought, blue is the company I have in mind for one side, and then something not blue, not green, not brown, red is the other side. So I said, "So imagine you've recently visited a Blue Pen Company, that only makes blue pens. You buy one every week, it costs a dollar. When you need a Red Pen, you buy that from the Red Pen Company, and they only make red, you buy it, it cost a dollar." So I had them create this - left and right. Imagine you've recently visited both organizations for two weeks each. All right? And then I said on the, you've got a left side and a right side, one's red, one's blue, top versus bottom. 0:10:24.1 BB: I said, "So imagine for the first week as you're visiting these two companies, nobody's there. So give us some additional information. What I want you to do is describe the physical layout of both organizations." And this ties in really well with... So my idea, as I shared in a recent session from Edgar Schein who had passed away back in January. He was an organizational therapist for most of his career at MIT. And in his book, 'Organizational Culture and Leadership,' he talked about organizational culture can be analyzed at three levels. And I didn't know about these levels back in '98 and found about them later. And I found it fits really well. And he said the first level is artifacts. And he says, I just wanna read, he says, "The constructed environment of an organization, including its architecture, technology, office layout, dress code, visible or audible behavior patterns, public documents like employee orientation, handbooks." 0:11:27.8 BB: And, what Schein says is that those artifacts come from values, the reasons and/or rationalizations of why members behave the way they do. And values come from assumptions. And again, I'm quoting from Schein, "Typically an unconscious pattern that determines how group members perceive, think and feel." And again, I didn't know about those at the time, but going back to the exercise, there's a left side and a right side. One is Blue Pen Company, one is Red Pen Company. The top two cells are, what would you see physically as Schein would say: what are the artifacts of these two organizations? And all you know so far is that one makes blue, one makes red, they both cost a dollar. And I buy one from each. Well then in the bottom two cells, what I want you to imagine is, so for the first two weeks, you visit both organizations, write down what are the physical characteristics of both organizations for the bottom two cells. 0:12:25.5 BB: And I apologize for coming back to this. In the first week you visit, there's no one there but you, no one there but you. So you're walking around both organizations, you're the only person around. You've got a clipboard. All you can talk about are the artifacts. What do you see? And the bottom two cells, imagine the second week in both organizations, there are people there. So for the bottom two cells, describe the people in both organizations. So all of this is artifacts and they come from values, they come from assumptions. But all you're doing is saying...but what I specifically wanted to differentiate is, what does the place look like different from what are the people like? And so everybody's ready to go. I'm gonna give you five minutes to put something in each cell. And here's the additional information. Andrew, you're ready? 0:13:12.7 BB: When I go to use the Blue Pen. So I would take the Blue Pen out and I would say, "When I use the Blue Pen, the cap goes off, the cap goes on, it goes off and it goes on nice and easy." And at the time I'm explaining this, they don't know anything about the prior story of Toyota, the pickup truck, 100% Snap-fit, Frank Pip. I usually... I save that for later. I said, all you know is the cap goes on, goes off nice and easy. Now the Red Pen, when I go to use the Red Pen, I need pliers to get the cap off. And there were times I had a little pair of pliers and I would use the pliers to pull it off and I need a hammer to get it back on. And I would have a little hammer and I boom, boom, boom. Now however, the Blue Pen... The cap is said to be Snap-fit. Then I would say just like snap your fingers, it comes off nice and easy goes on nice and easy, it doesn't fall off. That's all the information I have. Spend the next five minutes putting something in each cell. 0:14:14.3 BB: I've done that exercise around the world over 500 times of all different audiences, as young as college students, people working in the fishing industry, all over. And what's really cool is what shows up in those four cells is nearly identical. There may be some caveats due to language and whatnot. 0:14:40.8 AS: Identical across the 500, or again, identical... 0:14:44.1 BB: Yes. 0:14:44.5 AS: Across the red and blue. 0:14:46.5 BB: Yes, I... Well... What shows up in those four cells is nearly identical. So I would give people five minutes. And the other thing for those who are listening, my advice when you're doing this, that it took me a while to figure out the additional benefit is, what I would do is go around the room in each cell, the Blue Pen physical and ask if anyone has an example. So for the Blue Pen physical, someone will say: an open environment, bright lights, windows. All right. Then I'd go to the Red Pen Company, physical, "Okay, what do you see over here?" People might say, "Closed doors." Then I'd go to the Red Pen people, what about the people? And the... There might be "rigid,” “looking over their shoulder,” “on a time clock." Blue Pen Company, people might be happy and smiling. So I would go around the room before I give 'em five minutes just to make sure most of us are on the same page 'cause now, and then there'd be some people who are lost. And... But in general, people are pretty good. So then I give 'em five minutes and then depending on the size of the room, I might go around the room, table by table, look over your shoulder, see how you're doing, onto the next one, onto the next one and I get a feeling that they're doing pretty good. So then when I have them stop and there's different things I do at this point. I've had people at this point after five minutes stand up. Okay, there's a couple hundred people in the room at a conference. 0:16:31.0 BB: And I'll say: okay what I'd like you to do is find someone you've not met today and go introduce yourself and spend five minutes comparing trip reports. What's in your trip reports? And the room will very quickly erupt in laughter, whether I do it having you stand up, go find somebody or whether you are sitting at a table of four or five and I say across the table share. And then after they're done with that I'll say, "Okay, what did you find when you share your answers with others at the table?" And again and again, they'll say, "Their answers are just like mine." And I'll say, "Did anything come up in any of those quadrants that you were lost? That you said, Andrew, I... What do you mean by this? I don't know where you're coming from." And that's never happened. Every single time, they may have... They're looking at a factory and somebody may be looking in the kitchen, someone's looking in the lobby area. So they may be looking at different places, but it always fits together well. In the very beginning, what I would do, is I would give them five minutes. I wouldn't have 'em share anything yet. And I would go around the room and I'd say, get in the front of the room and the very first person, and I'd say if it was you say, "Andrew, what's the first thing you have for Blue Pen Physical?" And you'd say, "Clean." In fact, what's really cool is "neat, clean and organized" came up in order again and again. 0:18:13.6 BB: So I would ask you, "Andrew, what do you see?" You would say, "Neat," next person "Clean," next person "Organized." And I go all the way around and just fill up one cell with the very first... One thing you have that you haven't heard yet. Then I would jump over to the Red Pen, fill it out, then I'd go to the Red Pen people. So I would fill up a given cell and in the beginning I would write these on flip charts. And again, I don't know exactly what I was... I had in mind, "It's gonna be interesting," but I didn't appreciate how powerful this has become. And in the beginning I would write these on flip charts and then at the end of the class, I would throw them away. Then as I began to see how common the patterns were, then I would write them onto transparency and save them and I would date them. And at one point of time I've a colleague who's working on a PhD thesis, University of Texas and his PhD research, Andrew, [laughter] came from 200 trip reports that I still had in my files that I hadn't thrown out. And he and his brother took the data 'cause we knew exactly who was in each class. And so he had... He and his brother had some methodology in his... So his research data for his PhD thesis, looking at the leadership styles of these two organizations. And so let me... 0:19:52.3 BB: So in the Blue Pen physical, it's: an open layout neat, clean, organized, what else? Harmonious and as needed, if you were to say harmonious, then I might say, "Andrew, what do you mean by that? What do you mean? What do you mean clean? What do you mean this? What do you mean?" And so there's nothing wrong for our listeners who are trying this out with people. It's just keep asking them: "What do you mean by, what do you mean by." What's most critical is write down exactly what people say. Don't interpret. Don't yeah I would just say don't interpret. So I go all the way around and people would be astounded. 0:20:40.9 BB: I mean, I'd say a couple of things. One is quite often what people see in the contrast is where they work [laughter] versus where they would love to work. [chuckle] Now let me also say, in the very beginning when I did it, I did not explain to them what Snap-fit meant. So I did not say Snap-fit is good. I just said Snap-fit. Now, there would be people who would say, "Well, does it mean because it's Snap-fit, that it's good." And I would just say, "I didn't say one is good, one is bad. All I'm saying is one goes together with the hammers, one doesn't," and then I would eventually explain to them the a 100% Snap-fit Toyota pickup truck, and it would come together nice for them. Well, when I found the uses of this are one, people can, but Dr. Deming talked about prevailing style of management, but talking about it and having conversations about it is, what I found is this exercise... 0:22:00.1 BB: I think helps people in their own words, explain to them. It allows them to create a sense of: what is the prevailing system of management? And it's the Red Pen Company's side in many ways, and then: what is a Deming organization? It's the opposite. Now this is a very simple black and white model. And as George Box's quoted saying "All models are right. Some models are useful." I have found it enormously useful to look at the two organizations and ask people, what are the conversations like in both organizations? And I would say, "Okay, you're walking around a Red Pen Company, you come across two people in the hallway, what are they talking about?" 0:22:48.4 BB: And what you'll get is: it's second-shift people complaining about first-shift people, or it's engineering complaining about manufacturing. And then people would say, there's a lot of "us and them" and I said, okay. What I've also heard people say, is they'll say, "Well, on second shift where they work, we're a Blue Pen Company." "Also on second shift we're a Blue Pen, but those first-shift people, those are Red Pen." And you know, I said, what's a conversation like in a Blue Pen Company? "I've got an idea. Hey, let me hear about it, blah, blah, blah. Tell me more. Tell me more." I'll ask them, what are survival skills in both organizations, survival skill in a Red Pen Company? What'd you find there? And people would say you know, being able to finger-point, not being blamed, protecting yourself, you know, the CYA mentality. Mentality. Don't ever... 0:23:52.8 AS: Surviving the occasional backstabbing. 0:23:55.9 BB: Oh yeah. Don't ever try anything new. You know, what will also come out is, you know, "stodgy, stiff, inflexible." Whereas I said, what about people in the Blue Pen Company? And they'll present this. And I'll ask them, "Which organization would you call a learning organization?" And people will always say, the Blue Pen Company. And I say, why? And they say, "Well, you know, they're always trying to figure out, you know, they're doing PDSA cycles, trying to figure out improvement, improvement." And I'll say, you don't think people in a Red Pen Company have learned how to survive [laughter]? You don't think they've learned how to finger-point, you don't think they've learned how to duck and cover? 0:24:39.9 AS: In a Red Pen. You were saying in a Red Pen Company or in a Blue Pen? 0:24:40.7 BB: Oh yeah I meant Blue Pen, I meant red I mean Red Pen. I said, what I was trying to point out is people will say a Blue Pen is a learning environment. What I'm trying to point out is, don't underestimate the ability of people in a Red Pen Company to also learn, but that learning is about self-protection. And, you know, so the survival skills in that environment are protecting oneself, hoarding information, not allowing others to know how to, you know, do things. So they have secret tools, secret analysis methods, and I say, what are survival skills in a Blue Pen Company? And people will say, "Sharing knowledge is power in a Blue Pen Company." And so I constantly wanna make sure that I'm sharing. And, but it's not that I inundate everyone with everything, but a week later after Andrew, you've asked me for something, a week later I come to you and I say, "Hey, I've been thinking about it. 0:25:34.3 BB: And something else occurred to me that I thought you might value." What I would also add to the conversation is, "What percent of organizations are Red Pen companies?" And I just say, just, you know, in your experience. And then I would say in this unscientific survey, people would say the majority, 80% to 90% of companies, they would say, are Red Pen companies. And I would say, "Well, what keeps them in business? I mean, how could, what is, if 80% of them are Red Pen companies? What keeps all of these companies in what Deming would call the prevailing style of management and business?" People are like, "I don't know." 0:26:17.0 BB: In my response, I shared with my boss who was once President of Rocketdyne. I said, "What keeps us in business?" He said, "What?" I said, "Lousy competition." [laughter] 0:26:27.1 AS: Yeah. That's what I was gonna say. What keeps us in business is the other 80, 90 percent that's in the same boat as us. 0:26:32.7 BB: Exactly. Because they blame their people. Their people become dejected, withdrawn, only do as they're told, hide mistakes, which caused others to make the same mistakes. How can you keep in business focusing on the past to get back to the present when you're in this constant firefighting mode? How do you stay in business other than: others run the same way. And Deming somewhere in The New Economics, I believe in The New Economics. He says, "Be thankful for a good competitor." So that's what I mean by the vision therapy. This Blue Pen Company, Red Pen Company. I've done variants of it. The very first one was blue and red Snap-fit versus not snap-fit. I've, in the last few years, we'll get exactly the same results with a different starting point. 0:27:30.2 BB: And the starting point I use is, I tell the story of the executive sitting next to me that I think I've shared about the last straw. The straw that, what if you're in an organization where you believe the last straw broke the camel's back, what would it be like to work there? And people would say, "Oh, I wouldn't wanna work there is a culture of blame." So I would explain, imagine you recently visited an organization where everyone believes that the last straw did it, and that's called the Last Straw organization. And then there's also this All Straw organization where you understand the systemic aspect of all the straws getting together. And so if I was to start this exercise and explain this belief in the last straw that we have in society, that the basketball game has won on that last shot, or lost in that last shot, versus an all straw, I can use that starting point, Andrew, and have people go through and compare the physical aspects of both organizations and people and get exactly the same results and if it's, 'cause what I found with people, they'll say that... 0:28:31.9 AS: When you say exactly the same, you're saying exactly the same as the Red Pen Blue Pen? 0:28:36.1 BB: Yes. If you were to look at the... If you had a group of 30 people and get a composite score in those four quadrants, you wouldn't necessarily know if it was started with Red Pen, Blue Pen, or All Straw, Last Straw. And I've also done it when I worked for the Deming Institute in that timeframe when I left Rocketdyne, I started explaining it as what if there was one organization where there's a sense of "we," look what we did, how did we do on the exam? Andrew, you're the student, I'm the professor. A collective sense of all for one and one for all versus a "me" organization. Where the question I ask you, Andrew, is "How did you do on the exam?" And inferring that your ability to learn from the exam is separate from my ability to teach. 0:29:28.6 BB: Like I could be saying, "How are you doing in sales" versus "How are we doing in sales?" So if I was to describe it as a "me" organization, everything I do, everything is accomplished by me alone breaking things into parts. My task is done. A lot of this question one stuff that we've been talking about in terms of quality versus a "we" organization, if I explain the "me" and the "we," and there's ways to do that and then get into the trip report, me, we, and the four quadrants, very, very similar. And so I found is in terms of a vision exercise, first of all, depending on who the audience is, I'll get a... I'll figure out do I wanna use Red Pen, Blue Pen, All Straw and Last Straw, me versus we. And there's a couple others that I've used, but I know that once I get them thinking about, I just have to come up with what is the differentiator. 0:30:26.7 BB: And then I get them thinking about the artifacts. And then from the artifacts, once that is done, then I can talk about the conversations in both, the survival skills in both, the what if an... What is an ethics issue in both organizations? And I'll just say a little more about that. And I've worked in large corporations and ethics training. Really, what does it come down to the end of the day is that I didn't misuse company resources, that I didn't charge Project A using the Project B charge number [laughter], right? And I didn't fill out my timecard deliberately wrong. I didn't try to cheat the company on a trip report kind of thing. Well, then what I start thinking about is what's an ethics issue in a Blue Pen Company? 0:31:23.5 BB: And I believe, I think this comes from Dr. Deming, he would say, if, I'm pretty sure it was Deming, Deming would talk about a salesperson for a copying machine. And so Andrew, I'm the salesman and I come to your company and wanna sell, you're in need of a copier. And Deming would say, if I tried to sell you a copier that was bigger than you needed, because there's a bonus for me, Andrew, or a copier that was smaller. If I sold you a copier that I knew was much less than what you needed or much more than what you needed, then Deming would say, that would be unethical. He'd say, "My job is to sell you exactly what you need." And I view that, and I thought, "Well, that's a Blue Pen phenomenon where ethics is about how am I treating others with a sense of sharing or hoarding or whatnot?" So what I found is... 0:32:21.3 AS: Well, also ethics is how am I treating the customer? 0:32:24.4 BB: All of that. Well, how am I treating my coworkers? There's a poem I use with a great quote from Robert Frost and he said "What's the secret to selling a horse?" Have I ever shared this with you? 0:32:35.0 AS: No. 0:32:36.1 BB: The secret to selling a horse. Are you ready? 0:32:36.8 AS: Yep. 0:32:39.5 BB: Just sell it before it dies. [laughter] 0:32:41.7 AS: There you go. 0:32:44.3 BB: And so, and what Frost says in the poem is that we go through life handing off our problems to others. And I've written about this and I said, well, you mean like selling a coworker a horse? And then you come back the next day and you say, "Bill, you know this horse is dead." And I say, "Andrew, it was alive when I gave it to you." What? So I look at it as whether you're a coworker or a customer, what's that all about? And so I throw that out because... 0:33:12.2 BB: I find that that simple model is an incredible mechanism. Earlier today I was in a conversation with a coworker and the word that came up in conversation was you're "driving change." Driving change. And I said, "Driving change is what happens in a Red Pen Company." And the explanation I gave, in the Red Pen Company, I come to you Andrew, and I said, "I want this by tomorrow." And driving change is: I've got a gun to your head. And I say, "Do you understand what I'm looking for?" And you're like, "Right, 'cause I can find somebody else to do this, Andrew. I need this by tomorrow." That's driving change. And so what I'll say to people is, if driving change is a Red Pen Company, then what's the word we use in a Blue Pen Company? 0:34:05.2 AS: Coaxing. 0:34:07.4 BB: And people will say, "I don't know, what's that word?" And I'll say, "Lead, lead!" [laughter] That's what leadership's all about. You want to follow. And so, what I find is this model has allowed me to get a great number of people to explain in their own way, envision the two different organizations. And there's no doubt where they wanna work. They'd much rather be in the Blue Pen, "we" organization, an All-Straw organization. And then we can talk about, how does... The next thing I look at is with an understanding of the System of Profound Knowledge. Can you understand how a Red Pen Company might become a Blue Pen Company? Or my other proposal is that all organizations start off as a Blue Pen Company. So I started off an organization in my garage. I'm the only employee, I have customers, I have suppliers, but I know where everything goes and everything is Snap-fit because it's all about me and I wanna make sure these things integrate really well. And so how does that become a Red Pen Company? 0:35:19.7 BB: Well, here's what happens Andrew is, I hire you right outta school. You're all excited and you come in, you wanna join this organization, and I need help. Andrew, I need help. And I like your attitude. But then what happens is, I go to you and I say, "Andrew, here's what I want you to do. Your job is to answer the phone. Your job is when people call in, here's an instruction sheet, here's the order sheet. I want you to take the order. Here's what we do. We offer different sizes, different colors. You're gonna sell them what they need, not more, not less. You're gonna take their credit card information, you're gonna repeat it back to them, blah, blah, blah." 0:35:54.0 BB: And what I point out is that what I'm slowly doing, once I hire you, is putting people in separate roles. And next thing I know, I've got a baseball team where everybody's covering their own base instead of being incredibly flexible. And so I use that to point out that with the best of intentions, you could go in that direction. And, but what I've seen is I can use the four elements of Profound Knowledge to explain how one becomes the other. I can also use the System of Profound Knowledge to explain why the behaviors are the way they are. Which goes back to: what are the value systems in both organizations? What are the fundamental assumptions? Now relative to what is meant by big problems? Well, Red Pen companies, again, going for those listeners who have heard the earlier podcast. Well, Red Pen companies, all straw, I'm sorry, Last Straw organizations. 0:36:57.7 BB: They're focusing on parts in isolation. They don't work on things that are good. They focus on the things that are bad. So it's always big problems. They're focusing on the past to get back to the present, kept in business by competitors who waste their resources exactly the same way. And it's not to say you never have a problem, but it's to say instead of having a full-time fire department where that's all we're doing, all the doing all the time with a significant portion of our resources, we're using control charts in places where it makes sense. Run charts when a control chart doesn't matter as much. Or we are not even collecting data 'cause intuitively we have a sense of how things are going and where we get blinded, we have problems, but we're also in that environment. We know where can we be spending time to save a lot of time. That's the great opportunity. 0:37:49.7 BB: Things are, so I'm saving time by not having things break. I am managing variation in my resources accordingly, just to allocate my resources for the greater good. A stitch in time saves time. And that's the great opportunity focus that Red Pen companies don't know anything about 'cause they're so focused on the firefighting. And to me, what allows the shift from the Blue Pen to the Red Pen. I mean, what, either if you're unaware of these dynamics, then my Blue Pen Company will gradually become this Red Pen Company nightmare. Because I'm not paying attention to what Deming's talking about. I'm unaware of the System of Profound Knowledge. And I just lapse into that unknowingly. It's not intentional. I just don't know that addition doesn't work, you know, only works when the activities are independent. I think things that are good are equally good. 0:38:47.1 BB: And so to me, I can explain with the System of Profound Knowledge how red becomes blue, how blue becomes red. I can explain the conversations. And the last thing I wanna mention is, is when people come to me with, "Hey, how can I handle an X, Y, Z situation, something we've never talked about in the class or in a seminar?" And people will bring this to my attention and say, "Here's the issue I'm dealing with. Here's that problem I'm dealing with. How can I solve that?" And what I find is, is what I tell people is, here's my advice. 0:39:24.0 BB: And you can do it on your own, or ideally if you can explain this to others and have some others understanding this contrast, then you can - with a group - do what I'm about to explain. And that is first ask yourselves, "How would a Red Pen Company address that issue?" "We're gonna do a root cause investigation. We're gonna find the person who screwed up, we're gonna replace him, blah, blah, blah. We're gonna go that way." And then I would say, "Okay, after you've exhausted that, now ask yourself, what would a Blue Pen Company do by comparison?" 0:40:51.0 BB: And I'm not saying one of those is right, one is wrong, but my belief is that as a starting point, no matter where you are in your Deming journey, I believe, again, and the more people are involved in this, the better - I think the better we can get our minds around how a Red Pen Company handles it. And then say, "Okay, what if we become aware that the ability to learn together and work together is based on the our ability to think together?" Now you go the other way and I have individually done that when someone has asked me. And so I just want to throw that out that I find the model, this vision therapy model to be immensely valuable in brand new situations as a starting point. 0:40:51.1 AS: And in wrapping up, how would you describe kind of the number one takeaway without talking about Blue Pen, Red Pen and the exercise, how would you describe the takeaway that you want our listeners and our viewers to get from this? 0:41:07.6 BB: The number one takeaway is: don't underestimate the value proposition of a shared mental model. And this is what I find is, I can within a half hour have people imagining both organizations, imagining the conversations and that for the, and this is what is so cool that I wasn't anticipating in the beginning, is how quickly people can, without reading The New Economics, just by, 'cause essentially what you're getting them to do without talking about assumptions, they are focusing on assumptions and values. So we're not talking about the artifacts, but we're taking the artifacts and without getting... This is what's so cool is without reading Edgar Schein's work, we're really doing what he's talking about is going from the artifacts down to the values, and then we can talk about the values within organizations. And I find, and another thing I would say is, I've never met anyone that thrives to work in a non-Deming organization. 0:42:15.6 BB: They wanna work in a Blue Pen Company. And so I would, that's what I also find is without mentioning Deming's work, which is also pretty cool about this, I don't have to mention Deming, Taguchi or Ackoff. I could very simply get them and they will self-identify, reveal things. And another essential aspect of this is, this is not me telling you where you wanna work. This is me not telling you what you see. This is you sharing with others. And I learned from a colleague years ago that you can't tell anybody anything. So another immense value proposition here is that people are telling you, and then all you have to do is guide them. And that's what I find is immensely valuable. 0:43:02.6 AS: It's like you're teasing out the intrinsic desires, values and all that. 0:43:08.1 BB: All of that is coming out... 0:43:10.5 AS: Without... 0:43:10.5 BB: They're sharing frustrations. They're articulating frustrations in areas that they've not thought about. And then when they share and realize... In fact, I had a guy in a class once going through this exercise and he came up to me actually, we went through...I did this with a bunch of co-workers at an offsite location where all of them knew each other. And we went through the exercise and then took a break. As we're going to a break, one of them come up to me and he saw all the things on the whiteboard and the four quadrants. 0:43:50.3 BB: And he says to me, "These people, my co-workers," this is one-on-one. He's looking, and he says, "My co-workers got all of that over the cap fits or it doesn't." [laughter] 0:44:09.6 BB: And he wasn't denying, but he's like, "I don't get it." He came up to me two hours later when the class is over and he said, "I can't believe what I couldn't see." [laughter] And that's when I realized this is a really exciting exercise that I've written about and helped others present literally around the world. And I find it works amazingly well to create a framework that people aren't realizing is helping them achieve what they really all want. I believe. I believe. 0:44:46.2 AS: Yap. Well, Bill, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Dr. Janet Pilcher invites Amy Mikesell, principal of Estacada High School, and Kate Dean, instructional coach, as guests on this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast. Amy and Kate share their continuous improvement journey and the strategies, such as PDSA, rounding, and Plus/Delta, that have helped them achieve great progress in helping students own their learning. Listen to them discuss this relentless and rewarding work as they also provide advice and other strategies they have utilized to see success in their classroom improvement journey. Recommended Resources: Students are Treasures, Inspiring Young Futures, Plan Do Study Act (PDSA), & Tailor Your Rounding Questions

Dr. Deming railed against performance appraisals, listing them 3rd in his Seven Deadly Diseases of Management and calling them "Destroyer of People." In this discussion, John Dues explains our cultural attachment to appraising workers and why it is a myth to assume that appraisals have any impact on performance at all. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is a continuation of our discussion about management myths that keep fooling us, and we are gonna be talking about performance appraisals. John, take it away.   0:00:32.1 John Dues: It's good to be back Andrew. I thought it'd be helpful first to connect back to what we've done, because it'll help listeners connect the dots between the various episodes that we've done together. I think this is the eighth episode, so episode one and two were all about the System of Profound Knowledge as a theory, and then episode three, we started working on understanding the concept of variation, special causes, common causes, that type of thing, and then four and five, we switched gears and talked about how to then apply the System of Profound Knowledge in our organizations. And so we talked about two powerful tools, process behavior charts, and then the PDSA cycles.   0:01:21.9 JD: Episode six, we started talking about A Nation at Risk and the Sandia report and how calls for education reform haven't always been built on a solid philosophical foundation. And then last time I introduced this idea of living in an age of mythology, and we talked about two myths. The myth about best practices and the myth of the hero educator. And so today, like you said, I thought we continue that discussion of the myths with a focus on performance appraisals, which is something that is a little bit hard to understand, I think it was hard for me to understand initially, but it's something that I thought was important because it's something when I listen to Dr. Deming's recorded seminars, it's something that he railed upon often.   0:02:14.9 JD: And I think tying all of the myths to a couple of key ideas is helpful. So I think that first idea is that when we see outcomes in a system, they're more than the skills and efforts of the individuals that work within the system. So those results come from more than just how the individuals within that system are working. The outcomes, that second idea is that the outcomes are mostly attributable to the system itself, and workers are only one part of that system. I think that's really important. That underlies all these myths and certainly underlies this idea of the myth of the performance appraisal.   0:03:00.8 JD: And I think that when we're talking about these myths, so we've covered the theory, we've talked about some ways to apply that theory, that System of Profound Knowledge in actual organizations. When we're thinking about the myths, what I'm thinking about is, dos and don'ts. And so the myths are the don'ts. There are specific prescriptions following the Deming philosophy that leaders should learn to stay away from and why to do so. And then of course, the do's would be a set of guiding principles to follow, and I thought, right now, we're focused on the myths and as we get through this episode and maybe one more on the myths, then we would then focus on the "what do you do?" That's where the guiding principles would come in, and so Deming outlined all of this for us. The theory, the application, the Do's and the Don'ts, and so that's where I thought we would start today.   0:03:55.6 AS: That's great. And we were talking before we turned on the recorder about how performance appraisals are such a fascinating area, and I know for a lot of people, there's nothing else. That that is the key of how you manage people. Like, you're talking about the core. Without performance appraisals, people are gonna be lazy. Without performance appraisals, people are gonna get distracted. Without performance appraisals people aren't gonna work hard because they're not gonna get compensated. Without performance appraisals, we can't get this organization to work and everybody to work together and this is the ultimate incentive that we need to motivate humans. So boy, you're taking on quite a tough topic here, John. Tell us a little bit more.   0:04:45.6 JD: We'll see how we do. And one thing to clarify when I say performance appraisal, in my world, in schools, this is typically called the Teacher Evaluation. So it has different names, but, an evaluation, an appraisal, some type of rating and ranking of employees basically. So I think one thing that, and you kinda just brought this up, is "if I don't do a performance appraisal, how am I gonna give feedback to team members?" And I think that's a good place to start is that, of course, I think that leaders and managers should, as a part of their job, provide direction and give feedback to team members.   0:05:33.9 JD: But I think it's a far cry to make the leap that giving direction and feedback is synonymous with administering performance appraisals. And I actually think that performance appraisals can actually work against giving good feedback. But like as a starting point, what makes up the typical performance appraisal? Thinking about four parts, just so we are all starting from the same place.   0:06:06.7 JD: First there's standards that are set. "Here's the standards that are gonna be outlined in this performance appraisal." Then there's a time limit set to meet those standards, then the manager makes observations and judgments, and then finally, the evaluation is given to the individuals by the person sort of in the organizational hierarchy. I think a key thing that I've learned in studying the Deming philosophy when it comes to performance appraisals is that they fail to consider the role of the system on individual performance. So that's one problem.   0:06:50.2 JD: They also fail to appreciate the variation in performance attributable to common causes. So that's why I was connecting our earlier episodes on theory and the applications to performance appraisal, 'cause you have to understand that to understand why Dr. Deming was railing against performance appraisals in the way that he did, and those are two of the key reasons.   0:07:20.2 AS: Right. So a person being evaluated or being talked to with a performance appraisal, a common thing is, they could say, "wait a minute, you're saying I didn't do this, but I couldn't do this because the system has this whatever." Or you get a boss that's focused on common cause variation going, well, "you did this, and then that, and this guy did that, and this is and then all..." What they're really doing is chasing their tail on all of these common cause variation, which is not going to improve the system and it's just rewarding and punishing what is just a natural outcome of the system.   0:08:01.1 JD: Yeah, that's a big part of it. So if I'm a teacher and part of my evaluation is something like outcomes of students and how well I deliver the curriculum, the effectiveness of the curriculum, those types of things. Well, the vast majority of teachers didn't select the curriculum. So that's a good example of something that's a part of the system that a teacher has no control over typically, but that it could play a role in an evaluation, and there's all kinds of examples like that. That second idea in terms of the appreciation of where the person is falling performance-wise within that common cause system, what that means is that, sure, people could be performing at different levels, and there could be slight variations in that, but it's very possible that those ups and downs, just like any other ups and downs that we study are just common cause. And so it's not one person different from another within the rating system?   0:09:06.6 JD: Are they far enough outside that they show up as a special cause. That their performance shows up as a special cause. Because if it does in the case of a teacher or maybe a student that is outside of the system in terms of performance, then there may be special help or special support that's needed. But I think many, many times that's not the case, and that the ups and downs don't represent anything meaningful. And I think one of the things that helps bring this into view for people is to say, "well, how did you experience teacher evaluations or performance appraisal or whatever you call it in your system, how did you experience as...   0:09:50.6 JD: How did you experience that practice as a receiver of those things?" Because that puts you in a different mindset. For me, performance appraisals, when I've been evaluated, have largely been positive in terms of the overall rating, but they've also, a lot of times not made a lot of sense on any number of fronts. And so I think of, as a teacher in Atlanta, and Atlanta Public Schools had a teacher evaluation system, the principal would come in for one hour across the school year and observe me and write it up and formally evaluate me, sit down with me and go over that evaluation. Well, if you think about that, one hour of observation, the typical 180-day school year, seven hours a day, that's about 0.08% of the school year that the principal observed. So that's a big problem.   0:10:52.1 JD: So we're saying that that represents the entire...my entire time teaching across the school year. That one hour observation. So that's a major problem. Another issue is, what is it that I'm being evaluated on? One that stands out for me, and granted we were in a different time, 23 years ago, 22 years ago when I first was evaluated, but they're still a technology category in the evaluation. And so part of the evaluation was to "use technology effectively in a lesson." And so one of my first questions would be, well, "do you have to use technology in a lesson for it to be effective?"   0:11:40.4 JD: I think that would be questionable at best. But what if I use technology in some lessons and not in others, and the one you happened to observe, I didn't use it, right? You didn't see the ones where I did. I was working in a large urban school system, I had seven computers in my room and five of them didn't work on a regular basis. So that's another obstacle, right? And so I get this rating, I take it, I don't really say anything about the computers not working, or what about my other lessons where I did use computers, I just listen to this, but...   0:12:13.3 AS: Otherwise you're gonna be labeled as argumentative.   0:12:15.4 JD: I'm gonna be labelled as argumentative and the rating was fine as it was, although I lost some points for those things. It's probably not worth...it's not.... You kind of pick your battles. But the point is, what does that leave me with in terms of the taste in my mouth about my school, about this evaluation system, granted it's one part of the system and maybe I didn't care about it too much as long as the rating without a satisfactory level, but the point is, it didn't seem fair, it didn't seem to make sense, it didn't seem to line up with what you would need to look at in terms of what you need to make an effective lesson.   0:12:55.0 JD: And how many people are experiencing evaluations in those same ways, whether it's ridiculous and being evaluated for something that doesn't work in your room, like the computer's not working, or a smaller like, do you need computers to be a part of the lesson in the first place. And so there's all kinds of things like that that I think are part of a typical evaluation system.   0:13:22.0 AS: So to summarize what you're saying is one way to think about performance and appraisal is to think about your personal feeling when you're receiving your evaluation, and I would argue that most people don't feel great, it's not something they're really looking forward to.   0:13:36.2 AS: And the second way you can look at this is look at the person who's delivering it. If you're having to deliver performance appraisals, is that like your favorite day of the year that you're working with that person? Yeah, so that's a good way to look at it so that you kind of understand that there's just something that doesn't feel right here, but continue on.   0:13:56.6 JD: Yeah, it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. No one actually likes the process, generally speaking, and I think the thing that I wanted people would hold on to was that they don't get magically better when you're on the other side and being the evaluator. So my feeling wouldn't change whether I'm on the receiving or the giving side of the evaluation system now, I think for some leaders, unfortunately, I think that changes as long as they're on the other side, it's fine, but I think that's why I think putting yourself back in the shoes of the person receiving the evaluation is a good thing to hold on to. "I'm not special, there's not something about my personal characteristics that make evaluation unnecessary for me, but everybody else needs those things."   0:14:43.6 JD: So I think holding on to that as you move, especially if you move into a leadership role is a really important mental model. I think another key thing is after the evaluation, all of these people for the most part, are gonna still be working together, and so another key question that I learned from a Deming student named Peter Scholtes in a book called, The Leader's Handbook, a great book.   0:15:15.8 JD: He said, "what are the factors that differentiate highly effective versus lower rated people?" He outlined these five factors, so there's A, would be native ability and your early education, the second factor would be, B, your individual effort, how much work am I putting in as a teacher, as an employee. C, would be training, an orientation that I get as a part of the onboarding process or the ongoing professional development that I get as a part of the job. D would be variability of the processes and systems that are going on within my job, and E would be the system evaluation itself to some of those things that we just talked about, is it fair? Is it well constructed? Is it representative of my total work, that little sample that's seen by the manager.   0:16:17.0 JD: And if you look closely at those five items, really only one of them, that being, I think I call it D, that individual effort is under the control of the individual person working in the system. The other four factors really don't have anything do with individual performance, but what the performance appraisal system attempts to do is solve that equation, A plus B plus C plus D plus E equals my rating, let's call it 100.   0:16:54.5 JD: But if you can't solve that equation, if you don't know already what the variables A, C, D and E account for in terms of its contributions to the rating, the only thing you know as an individual effort, right?   0:17:11.2 AS: And you don't really know that either.   0:17:17.0 JD: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.   0:17:20.1 AS: So it's a shifting sand that you're working on, which is what probably one of the counter-arguments to performance appraisals is that there's just... It's so subjective and difficult, particularly, okay, if you're a narrow-minded person and you've never thought about the fact that there is variable B, C, D and E as an example, then...but once you start to think about those things, you realize that not only is it difficult to quantify and all that what a person's doing, and how do you factor in the fact that that person just went through the loss of a parent over the period of time that you appraise them. How does that impact performance?   0:18:02.5 JD: Any number of things. Any number of things. Yeah, I can think of a lot of examples when you start to unpack those various factors, like when you're talking to the manager, "oh, well, we didn't quite onboard them like we typically do now, no one acclimated them to our curriculum system" or whatever it is.   0:18:27.3 AS: But they're still responsible for delivery.   0:18:29.8 JD: Yeah, they still move forward with that response. And again, it's not that there's not gonna be variation in performance amongst employees, it's just, are we getting what we think we are from this rating and ranking system. I think what we're doing basically is disregarding the contributions of the system on the performance of individuals that are working within that system.   0:18:57.0 AS: And I guess if you talk about that to people, they're gonna be like, "Now you're unleashing something that's just unmanageable." Okay, yeah, fine. We're gonna start talking about the system and the impact and that everybody's just gonna blame the system! John, don't you know people are just gonna blame the system, then if we start talking about why it's not your responsibility.   0:19:23.2 JD: Yeah, I think, yeah, we'll kinda get into what's the prescription in terms of...what would of the prescription be from the System of Profound Knowledge in terms of what to do instead, but one thing to do, if you did have some type of evaluation system, you could just remove the numbers and have a narrative feedback on characteristics or competencies or capacities that are important for your particular organization. I think that that would be one way to handle it.   0:20:00.4 JD: Another great tool that I learned from David Langford is a tool called the capacity matrix, where you outline what are the capacities that are important for a given role that you want to see develop. You define a series of dimensions of growing from more basic to more proficient in a particular capacity, and then you ask the person to track their own learning in those areas, and as they self-evaluate, they have to provide evidence, be it - maybe they give a presentation or incorporated a technique into their lessons on a regular basis, or maybe they presented at a staff meeting, something like that, but they have to link the capacity development to some evidence that it's been put into place.   0:20:51.0 JD: That's another way to handle... The point is to develop the person and build capacity, that's a much more powerful way to do it, and I think the goal of starting to use the Deming philosophy is transformation, and I think what Deming was talking about when he talked about transformation is this process from going from - starting to understand these assumptions and these myths and then working to move away from them. So one of the things...one of the lenses I have just in studying the Deming philosophy is to ask questions because so many of the practices like the performance appraisal, prior to studying Deming, I never even stopped and said, "well, what is the theory behind the performance appraisal? Where did it come from? Why do people think it isn't an effective practice? Are there practices that would be more effective?"   0:21:52.3 JD: So just as a starting place, you can start to ask questions about some of these things that you probably never even stopped to think about. I think that was true for me, whether we're talking about these myths or any other number of things that are common in organizations, work settings, and we have this...   0:22:14.0 AS: And for performance appraisals: what is the theory behind them?   0:22:20.0 JD: That's a good question. That is a good question. Where did they come from? Well, I don't know for sure, but I know that...a lot of corporate practices can be traced back to things like the military and early railroads, which were some of the first organizations to have a larger staff that had to be organized in a way, and I know that in terms of the rail companies that you know, when there was a crash, there did need to be somebody blamed. And so you had to nail down who in the hierarchy... Where did things break down? It had to be an individual to blame when two trains ran into each other or the train ran off the tracks. And I think what Deming is saying it is what was actually the system that led to that crash, that's what we needed to study in a lot of cases, and almost in all cases, whether it's the train running off the tracks or the Challenger space shuttle disaster, almost all of them were of system problems and it wasn't one single individual that you could pin those problems on.   0:23:37.2 AS: And you could argue that performance appraisals are not really there in that case, like what you're talking about let's say is a train crash, it's not really there to some extent to blame... To improve the system, it's there to blame someone and then, "okay, we got our scapegoat, now let's move on."   0:23:54.4 JD: That's right, yep. Yeah, so with performance appraisal, it's not quite as dramatic as the train crash, but what's happening is that it leads to this rating and ranking of teachers, we do the same things with students, students have their own form of performance appraisals, even schools within state accountability systems have their own rating and ranking systems. So they reward at the top and punishment at the bottom, that's the typical present practice. And I think the better practice, what we're trying to move towards when you're managing through the Deming philosophy is: abolish the ranking in favor of managing the whole organization as a system, and what you wanna do is study and understand how every part of that system, every component whether it's grade levels or departments, whatever, how do they contribute to the optimization of the system.   0:24:57.8 JD: And so that's... What's the aim of your system, how do you optimize that? And I think a big part of this performance appraisal thing is that that practice is running in the other direction from optimization. You are incentivizing individuals to look out for themselves versus contributing to the aim of the organization.   0:25:26.7 AS: One of the things that people say is like, "What do I replace it with?" Well, in a lot of cases in education, you may not even have that choice, but in private business, you do, and I always say that...I always say "imagine that you're lost deep in the woods, and after hours of walking in one direction, you realized that you're walking in the wrong direction. However, you're unsure of the right direction, but you've received enough information to know that you're walking in the wrong direction. What would you do?"   0:26:05.7 JD: Perhaps stop going in the wrong direction as a starting point.   0:26:12.3 AS: And the point is, is that you don't have to know the right direction if you've identified the wrong direction. And so that's one of the challenges that we often get with performance appraisal is, "what are we supposed to do if we don't do that?"   0:26:28.8 JD: Yep, yep. And I think... And that's - when you start to understand the System of Profound Knowledge, you start thinking about ways that it can offer you guidance on a practice like the performance appraisal. And so what I tried to think through is, in terms of performance appraisal, what do each of the components of the System of Profound Knowledge contribute in terms of learning about the way...in terms of your analogy: the way to move...start to move in the right direction.   0:27:08.5 JD: And so there's the four components of the System of Profound Knowledge, we have Appreciation for a System, Knowledge of Variation, Theory of Knowledge and Psychology. And so each of those components has contributions to make in terms of rethinking the performance appraisal. So I was gonna break those down as a way to round down out our talk today. Some of this is a recap, but when I think about Appreciation for a System, we've talked about this, but that system is responsible for most of the observed variation between the performance of the individuals. It's most...Deming said up to 94%, depending on the situation, even up to 97% of the results that come out of the system can be traced back to the system itself, and only 3% to 6% were attributable to the individuals.   0:28:08.0 JD: So the system is the overwhelming contributor to that ranking within that, doesn't help anyone, nor the system improve. Giving somebody a rank, sorting people into good and better and best does not point the way towards improvement for the organization. So that's the Appreciation for a System contribution.   0:28:34.1 AS: Yep. We could say changing seats on the Titanic.   0:28:37.2 JD: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Then we have understanding variation or Knowledge about Variation. So we've talked about this a little bit, but ranking people, especially when we're ranking within a common cause system, is misleading. 'Cause remember, even if there's ups and downs in terms of the data, the question isn't: is it different? It's: is it meaningfully different? And in a common cause system, even though there are some ups and downs, there's no difference. It's not of a magnitude that you can say, "yep, that's significantly different from one point to the next." And another thing to consider is there will always be variation. [chuckle] There's always gonna be variation between students, between teachers, between schools, between school systems, between states, whatever that thing is, there is variation in a natural state of affairs. So we have to come to grips with that.   0:29:40.9 JD: In terms of Theory of Knowledge, when we rate and rank people, it's a snapshot. Kind of like what I alluded to my observation in Atlanta being less than 1% of the total time that I was with my students. So that ranking doesn't take into account and any performance appraisal system I've ever been aware of that temporal spread. So in other words, I'm really more interested in what's the performance over an extended time period. And so when people would ask Deming, okay, you're saying, the performance appraisal is something we should abolish. Well, how much data would you need on an individual worker before you could rate them? And what he would say is 15 or 16 years. [chuckle]   0:30:32.1 JD: And basically what he's saying is, I think, is that, that's the amount of performance data you would need to plot. If you're doing it once a year, once you have 15 or 16 years, you can kind of get a sense of how that data is performing over time. That last component, maybe the most important is Psychology. I think one big problem is that those performance appraisals at their worst are debilitating to people, at their best, they're perceived to be arbitrary, like what I talked about. Certainly wasn't debilitating to get my rating, my rank and my rating in Atlanta, but it did...I did see the rating and the points I lost as arbitrary and meaningless, to be candid.   0:31:23.1 JD: And then another big part of that psychological component, especially when it becomes to rating and ranking students, is that this thing called the Pygmalion effect begins and it can really start to destroy cooperation. Whether that's students or teachers, but you this is basically this idea that once, let's say a teacher has a set of expectations about students, they start to take on those characteristics, whether it's in a positive or negative direction.   0:31:57.2 JD: And they've done some pretty fascinating studies on this Pygmalion effect in classrooms. There's one where it's like in the late sixties, basically a teacher was told that a set of students had performed really well on a standardized test. In reality, there was no difference between this group of students and the rest of the students. But because the teachers thought that, over time what the researchers found is that they started treating the students differently and it actually resulted in those students scoring higher on the standardized tests at the end of the year just based on those teacher expectations. And so, talk about a powerful, powerful set of effects within a rating and ranking system. And I think that's something we really need to consider in any type of institution, but especially a school system. So, yeah.   0:32:55.0 AS: I was just reminded of a quote that Dr. Deming said, which is, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna read it for for a minute here. I'm gonna read it in my Dr. Deming voice. "So evaluation of performance, merit review, or annual review. The idea of merit rating is alluring the sound of the words, captivate the imagination, pay for what you get, get what you pay for, motivate people to do their best for their own good. The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise." [chuckle]   0:33:32.1 JD: Yeah. I think that's what I found in practice, before I discovered the stuff I tried to improve our teacher evaluation system. And in reality that's just an effort that's not worth my time.   0:33:47.9 AS: He also said, "Annihilates teamwork, and it's purely a lottery."   0:33:53.3 JD: Yep.   0:33:57.7 AS: I wrote a blog post on this many years ago entitled, Why We Stopped Performance Appraisals at Coffee Works, my company. And this was... I published in 2016, and I just would... Maybe I'll just read a little excerpt here. What I said is, "The system was an annual review during which bosses in our companies met employees and scored them as A, B or C. I read Jack Welch's book and I thought, yeah, kick out the C players, this has made sense in the days when I was buying into that. We would use this to allocate bonus mainly to pay, A's and B's. A's a lot, B's a little bit, and C's nothing. And for years we've been seeing the weaknesses of this system, but didn't have the guts to abandon it, because we didn't have something to replace it.   0:34:50.5 AS: And so before you ask what we did to replace it, let's consider what we didn't like about it. Number one, it was unfair. Number two, it was subjective. Number three, it fostered favoritism. We saw that certain employees were continually getting positive ratings from their bosses. Number four, it failed to recognize what quality godfather Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught was that the majority of the output of any one employee is attributable to the system. And number five, it was time consuming and costly. Number six, it did not enhance employee performance. Number seven, it increased fear and caused suspicion. Number eight, it caused employees and departments to compete against each other rather than compete against our competitors or just take care of the customer.   0:35:34.2 AS: Number nine, it was completely inward focusing, encouraging employees to shift their focus from the customer during the time of performance appraisals. It's like you can't take care of the customer 'cause you gotta get all these performance appraisals done." Is there anything that you would add to that list of what you see in the education environment?   0:35:51.3 JD: No, I mean that's spot on. I mean, I think the key summary or takeaway is for any of these practices, be it performance appraisal or otherwise, is that thing optimizing the system? Is it making your organization better at achieving its aim? And you just named a whole lineup of things that said, "no, this is why in this particular practice performance appraisals, this is why Dr. Deming railed against them." So I think that, yeah, I think that was a great synopsis of many of the things that Dr. Deming talked about in his seminars when he railed on performance appraisals.   0:36:33.4 AS: So, as we wrap up, the purpose of today's discussion is to open up people's minds to understand what are performance appraisals, what are the myths behind it? What are the weaknesses of it? We also kind of said, even if you don't have a substitute, you could argue that you don't have to keep doing something that's damaging if you know that it's damaging. But we also know in an education environment, you may not have the power to make that decision. Like we had in our coffee business, it was like, "this isn't working, we're stopping. No more resources to this." We have that flexibility. So, we haven't spent any time talking about ways to do things and the positive aspect. But let's just wrap up this whole conversation. How would you kind of wrap up the message that you want the listeners and the viewers to get from this specific discussion?   0:37:29.4 JD: Yeah, I think because a lot of this, a lot of Deming's ideas were targeted at leaders and leaders at all different levels. And I think, what constantly happened to me was someone would say "what's your leadership style?" And I would typically cobble together some type of jargon in response to that question. But what Dr. Deming offers is a management philosophy: the groundwork, the framework, the foundation, the philosophical foundation, the myths to stay away from, a set of guiding principles that actually, when you dig deep and you study these things, they offer a way forward, a lens through which to make better decisions for your organization. And that's really what I take from this.   0:38:22.3 JD: There are many better ways to run our organizations. Performance appraisals are just one component of this, but hopefully what people are taking is that, hey, at the very least, the next time I have a leadership team meeting, I'm gonna bring this up and say, Hey, why do we do this? Is it leading to the type of results - like what you're alluding to with your business - that we think it is. And if it's not, what else could we do? How can we replace this, make it better? How can we at least begin to ask these questions instead of just carrying on? Because it's the way that we've always done things. So, yep.   0:39:00.6 AS: John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember, go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your host, Andrew Stotz. I'm gonna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."  

In this episode, John and Andrew unpack a few of the myths Dr. Deming identified that continue to destroy organizations from the inside. John explains how these myths also negatively impact schools and kids - and what to do instead. 0:00:02.0 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is, Management Myths that Keep Fooling Us. John, take it away.   0:00:28.3 John Dues: Andrew, it's good to be back, good to talk again. Yeah, I thought we could build on the last conversation, which unpacked these two education reports. One that had a seminal impact for the last 40 years called A Nation at Risk, and another Sandia Report that we talked about that has a much lesser known. And I was thinking what comes out of some of the reports often as a shake-up, and then there's various ideas about what to do about the crisis outlined in this case. But I think, a lot of the times, those management practices have the opposite of the intended effect. And I think... One of the things I was thinking about is that Dr. Deming, maybe his most radical idea that he put forth is that any outcome that we see within a system, like a system of education, is the result of more than the skills and efforts of the individuals who work within that organization. And what he would say is that most of the performance differences observed between individuals are generated by these complex and dynamic, adaptable systems, and workers are only one part of that system.   0:01:49.8 JD: And I think understanding that sort of core idea of Deming is one of the ways that we can start to move away from the common management and maybe understanding those management myths is maybe the most important part of understanding the new philosophy that Deming was sort of putting forth. I think one of the things that I learned in watching some of his videos from his famous four-day seminars is that he often began those seminars by saying, management is living in an age of mythology, and even though he was saying that throughout the 1980s and even into the early 90s, before his death in 1993. I think that idea applies just as well today across numerous sectors, including education, as it did when he was saying it 30 or 40 years ago, I think it applies the education, applies to government, applies to industry.   0:02:52.6 JD: And what he meant by the age of mythology, at least my interpretation of it, is that leaders in these various industries basically operate according to these assumptions and these myths, and these myths are harmful to our organization. And so when he talked about the transformation process, part of the transformation process is understanding these myths and then moving away from them, actively trying to move away from them. So I thought we could talk about a few of those myths today and unpack those myths, where they originated and what were they are and then what to do.   0:03:29.3 AS: Great, great idea. And I remember he would say something like, how could they know? They did their best efforts, that's all that they have. Who came up with the idea of rating and ranking? Someone just... And then you realize people just may make things up ultimately and then they stick, not based on science or something like that. Sometimes the science creeps in there, but most of the time, based upon emotion. You jarred my thinking process when you're talking about the role of an individual in a system.   0:04:07.4 AS: And I was just thinking about how the beauty of the individual is that the individual is malleable. We're malleable, we're able to be contorted. Whereas when you install a particular piece of machinery that only has... Can produce so many units or such level of quality, it's a very rigid part of the overall system. And I was just thinking how, one of the reasons probably why we're always chasing after the individual, despite the fact that the very, very rigid machine over there is what's setting the ultimate specifications of the output of this is because the human is so easily manipulated. Well, put them over here and we'll do this, we'll do that, we'll start early, go late, try this, try that, whereas with the machine, you just have a lot less flexibility. And so you just made me think about that as I was listening to you talk...   0:05:02.3 JD: Yeah, that brings a good point. One, I think some prescient on your part is you mentioned the myth of rating and ranking, which is definitely one of the myths that I wanna get to. And I think you talk about machines versus workers. I think a couple of things I think of there, one is our organizational systems have become increasingly complex as we moved from the farm field to more of the industrial age, and maybe even the post-industrial age now. And who bought the machine? I think that's a lot what Deming was talking about is who designed the system, who had control over the system. If the machine is a major part of the process, who designed the machine and who bought it? Probably not the individual workers on the line. And yet, they were held responsible, or maybe even still today, held responsible for the results when they didn't design or pick the machine themselves. So I think that's a really good place to start. And I think that also brings up like, where did these management myths originate? Because if we go back a few hundred years, I think there's probably the lack of complexity, there's the...   0:06:26.8 JD: Mostly what we were doing is managing the work of... Managing our own work, I think of the farmer in the field or the craftsman in their workshop, is that sort of first line of management. And then as things got a little more complex, they're management by directing. So think of the craftsman taking on an apprentice, but it's still a pretty simple system and it's the manager, in this case, the master is directing the apprentice directly. And then you get the Industrial Revolution and you get this sort of third wave of management thinking... And here I'm thinking about management by results. And this is numerical quotas come into play, this idea, this common quip of, "I don't care how you do it, just get it done" type thing. And I think this is third generation management, and I think that's the dominant sort of paradigm of the 20th century. I think that probably paradigm in a lot of ways continues to the present day. But I think what Dr. Deming was a proponent of was this sort of fourth generation management, which was "management by method." So he was calling on, especially leaders, management of organizations to work with people on these methods rather than judging them on results, to your point about rating and ranking.   0:07:57.1 JD: And I think that's sort of a big part of the Deming philosophy, is to move from just rating and ranking people and thinking about instead, what are the methods people... What are the processes people are using within our systems to get the work done?   0:08:13.1 AS: Yeah, one other thing it just made me think about is that when you manage people, let's say in the US, people don't wanna be micro-managed, they want... They like to be told, "Well, you figure out how you're gonna do it and then do it." And let me take responsibility for that, right? So it is a bit seductive to forget about the methods and just focus on the individual and say, "Make it happen." And there are times that, that can be a valuable tool, a valuable way of managing when there's just so much going on, but also juxtaposing that to the typical manager in Thailand, which I'm very familiar with, they don't wanna be told that.   0:09:01.3 AS: It isn't necessarily their desire to be independent in their work and to originate the method. There's many managers here that really appreciate the boss that says, "Here's how I want you to get there," or "how do you think we should get there?" And that there's a much bigger discussion on that, maybe it's because there was less of an industrialization over the years, and that that's a newer thing compared to where America is at, but I know that my experience with management here is that managers do appreciate that concept of, "Let's look at the method of how you're gonna get there."   0:09:46.1 JD: Yeah. I think method is important, and I think one of the first myths that I was thinking about is, now label these as we go, but I was thinking of this myth of best practices, which it wasn't exactly what you were talking about, but it sort of made me think of where do the methods come from that we are working with it in whatever sector we're working with.   0:10:12.3 AS: So is this myth number one?   0:10:12.8 JD: Yeah, myth number one.   0:10:16.8 AS: Boom.   0:10:17.3 JD: Myth of best practice, so I think you teed us up really well. And this is an area that I've done some deep thinking on this because this has been a very... With all of these myths, you gotta be careful. You gotta really think about what it is that Dr. Deming was saying. And I'm not... So I'm not saying when I say myth of best practices, I'm not saying don't go out and study what other people are doing and try to bring the best of that to your organization. I don't think that's what Dr. Deming was saying. But I think that you gotta be really careful when you label something a best practice, and then try to incorporate it into your organization.   0:10:58.9 JD: And I was thinking in my role over the last two decades or so, maybe decade and a half, I've been fortunate because I've been a part of an informal network of schools and I've been able to sort of leverage that network, and go on many, many school visits probably many than the typical educator, even one that's in a leadership position. Dozens, I counted them up a couple of years ago over the last decade and a half, I think I've gone on over 120 school visits, and that's all types of different schools. Traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and all over the United States, in South Midwest where I'm based out of here in Columbus, the Western United States to northeastern parts of the country. And I think on one hand, these visits have been extremely beneficial. I was able to observe classrooms and school practices in these many different places.   0:12:00.3 JD: I was able to speak with teachers, building administrators, school district leaders about the many challenges they're facing, how they're counteracting those challenges and the solutions they've developed with. And I think I've always tried to pay very careful attention to what context is this particular school operating under - what's their student demographics? What resources do they have both financially and from a human resource standpoint? Where are they situated? Are they in a city or in a town? Are they in a rural area? Some of the factors associated with those different practices. So I pay attention to those.   0:12:45.4 JD: And every time you go into a school, each school has its own culture, it has its own feel. But I think that... Well, I have this appreciation of the context, I think as I've thought more about these various practices, I've grown more skeptical. I think there's really an under-appreciation for these contextual elements within which these best practices often operate. There's... I remember hosting my own school visit and we, in our own schools, in our elementary schools, we have these carpets where kids come to do reading, read-alouds.   0:13:29.5 JD: And after one of these school visits, one of the superintendent said, we're gonna go buy these carpets and we're gonna do this too. These carpets are great in the classrooms and I don't know how it worked out, but I got the sense that there was sort of like, there's a whole system, a whole set of processes and procedures that are set up. It's just not having the carpet in the classroom, it's how it's used, it's how the kids move to the carpets, it's what's happened once you get to the carpet. You can sort of under-appreciate all of the sort of thought went into something as simple as the read aloud carpet that you see in a classroom.   0:14:07.2 JD: And I think there's this part of about context, and then there's just also a part about, is this practice... Does it have a sound research-base as well? So you're looking at both of those things. And I think in education, those best practices, often the research base is very, very thin. And then there's this whole other side of things where you really have to understand what is the context, the different variables that went into making that practice work. It may have been something that unfolded over four or five years, and you just can't pull it out of that school and then drop it into your own setting. So I think one of the things that Deming said about best practices is "to copy is to invite disaster." And so I think there, he's not saying, "Don't go study other organizations," but it's not as simple as, "Oh, I see this curriculum or this teaching practice or this method in one place. We're gonna do that tomorrow." It's just not that simple. So I think this is, like I said, one of these myths that I've come to appreciate how important in the context that they're operating under is before you can take it to your own school or network.   0:15:20.0 AS: Yeah, a great way of thinking about this one is, imagine that you take a General Motors car. Let's take a, I don't know what's fancy these days, but let's say a Cadillac as an example. And we say, here is the design for the Cadillac and here's everything you need to know, all the parts and everything, and you deliver that to Toyota, and say, "You have a car factory, so build this car." What you don't realize is that in particularly with the Toyota production system, that the whole production operation at every company is built around an infrastructure or a context, as you said, that sets the stage for how that is done.   0:16:29.4 AS: And therefore, things are not interchangeable. And so if your idea is, I'm just gonna go around to these 120 different schools and look for best practices and bring them in, it's like an amalgamation of unnaturally developed things. And also the other thing that it made me think about is that the whole point of PDSA is that you're working in your own organization to build a deeper understanding of a particular problem and solution. And when you repeat that process, you are also building a unique competitive advantage. Now, whether that in, let's say, in the world of business, that competitive advantage may be kept secret or not necessarily shared - in the world of education, it may be made public, but it's very hard to duplicate something that has been constructed internally through process of learning. And so just putting amalgamation of different things onto a body or onto a facility doesn't make the combination of those something great.   0:17:35.7 JD: Yeah, and I think of, what's the idea of the day? For schools coming out of the pandemic currently, 'cause the impacts of the pandemic and learning loss and those things are still sort of obviously being felt by schools, and we're seeing that ramification show up and in test scores and other measures. So one of the things that has been sort of promulgated as a silver bullet is high dosage tutoring, which means like a significant amount of tutoring happening for an individual student or a small group of students on a regular basis where what happened three or four times a week. And you see this in education publications, you see this policy makers and even legislatures are pushing this idea.   0:18:33.3 JD: But the problem is, while the research base for that particular intervention may be strong somewhere and under some set of conditions, the question for a practitioner is, well, who are these tutors? How will these tutors be trained here? Who is training these tutors? What curriculum are the tutors using? What financial resources are there to pay these tutors and to acquire the curriculum? Where in the school day is that going to happen? What are kids that are going to high-dosage tutoring gonna miss in the school day to be able to attend that tutoring? If it's not happening during the school day, if it's happening before or after school, how will kids get home from that tutoring?   0:19:22.0 JD: Who's providing the management of the tutors? How are those tutors hired? How are those tutors replaced when they inevitably will turn over? I could go on and on and on and on and on and on about these things, well, someone tells me that as an educator leader that, yes, for sure high-dosage tutoring is the best practice that you should drop into your organization, those questions remain unanswered and those questions are actually the thing that will actually make the practice come to fruition and work or not, and oftentimes, when these different ideas are being thrown about, none of those questions have been answered. And so I think we do this over and over for certain in the school world that I'm in.   0:20:10.5 AS: It reminds me of that old time song that maybe our older listeners and viewers would remember, "Who takes care of the caretaker's daughter when the caretaker is busy taking care?"   [laughter]   0:20:22.9 AS: So who's taking care of all those different things behind the scenes and putting them all together? So that's a great one to help us realize that it's good to understand best practices, it's good to go out and survey and get them and consider them, but then what really matters is how do you take best practices that you see, narrow them down, the one that you think will fit in your system and then develop it slowly and steadily, so it becomes a permanent improvement in your system? I think that's what you're getting at. Would that be right?   0:21:02.4 JD: Yeah, that's exactly right. So I think of something that may come to us through something like a randomized controlled trial, like the effectiveness of high-dosage tutoring, I think looking at RCTs or other similar... That's sort of the gold standard research. But even...   0:21:20.4 AS: RCTs for the listener is Randomized Control Trials?   0:21:25.0 JD: Randomized Controlled Trial, a study where people are randomly assigned to groups and then there's a treatment for one group and not a treatment for another group, there's no real differences between those two groups, and then you see if there's an effect. I don't think there's a lot of the studies that sort of rise to the gold standard RCT, there are other types of studies in education for sure, but either way, I think that's to the difference between when an ideas come through a randomized controlled trial where it's worked somewhere for some group under some set of conditions.   0:22:03.5 JD: Versus the Plan-Do-Study Act cycle that we've talked about, I think reading the research base can give you a starting place, give you some indication of the types of interventions or the types of curricula, or the types of practices that may work, but the Plan-Do-Study Act cycle allows you to sort of take an idea in your context and try to get it to work under the very conditions under where the idea or the practice would ultimately have to be working for it to be effective in your organization.   0:22:36.4 JD: So I think that's the two differences. Those two things, the RCT and the PDSA cycles can be complementary, and I think that's how I actually think of those two things, but you can't just... Can't force these best practices into contexts that they weren't designed to be in. And you gotta figure out all those questions that I talked about with any idea, I use high-dosage tutoring, but those are the types of questions that you can start to... If you're gonna try that in your organization, you can start to hash that out through the PDSA cycle, so I may say... Instead of saying, we're doing high-dosage tutoring in our school district, what I may say is, "What would it take to provide targeted tutoring to one student for one week?" I'm gonna plan that, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna study the results and I'm gonna act on it.   0:23:31.8 JD: And in that one week, what you may find is a whole host of things in your context that you did not consider where you can't even get this to work with one kid, [chuckle] let alone a 1000 kids, or if you're in a bigger district, 10 or 15 or 20,000 kids and even those kids, even though they're in your district, they might not even be all operating under a similar context 'cause they're in different buildings with different adults and those types of things.   0:24:01.4 JD: So things become much harder when it comes to implementation, when you start to think in that way, "How would I get this thing to work with one student?" Come do that with me and you see the challenges person pushing high-dosage tutoring and then you can extrapolate that out to 1,000 kids or like I said, 10,000 kids, and you can start to see how this stuff falls apart pretty quickly in practice.   0:24:27.9 AS: Well, I think that's a great description of this first myth of best practices. So what myth number two?   0:24:37.4 JD: This is the myth I call myth of the hero educator. I think we latch on the hero stories in all kinds of walks of life. Hero stories stretch back to ancient times and they capture our attention for good reason. Ya know, they have these archetypes and we can identify with those archetypes, but when it comes to education, I think... I'm thinking about outlier educators with some type of... Some center of exceptional and rare talents, and I think one of the best known movies that captures this from an education perspective is Stand and Deliver. You may...   0:25:22.4 AS: That's what thinking about when you... I couldn't remember the name of it, but I remember that movie.   0:25:27.5 JD: Yeah, it's a prototypical hero teacher, biopic. It's Jaime Escalante in Los Angeles, basically, the movie depicts him leading his 18 inner city math students from basic math to calculus in just two years time, but then when you actually... Jaime Escalante is a real person, he's a real teacher in California at Garfield High School, but when you go study what actually happened, it's very different from... The movie is very different from what actually happened in real life, so when you look at what he actually did...   0:26:08.9 AS: Funny that.   0:26:10.7 JD: Oh yeah, can you believe it? But we latch on and say, "Oh, if he could do it... Or this is based on a true story. We can do this in two years." And what actually happened was that Escalante, the teacher, it took him eight years to build this math program that's depicted in this movie, he completely revamped the Math Department at his high school, he had to start by convincing the principal to raise the sort of math requirements at the school in general. Then he designed this whole pipeline of courses to prepare students for what they ultimately were trying to get to is AP Calculus and then he hand-selected top teachers to instruct those courses along the pipeline, and he even went to the junior high schools that fed into his high school and convinced them to offer algebra to eighth graders.   0:27:07.8 JD: So he's actually... What is actually really doing is setting up this math system basically that hadn't been there before, so he's actually thinking like Deming and setting up a system of pipeline that makes sense, and none of Escalante's actual students moved from basic math one year to AP Calculus, the following year, that's a complete misnomer, instead, it was the sort of system transformation that unfolded through the cooperation of obviously numerous educators and students over this eight-year period.   0:27:42.3 JD: Now, putting that the side, it didn't happen like you didn't move is still a pretty amazing story, whether it took two years or eight years, he set up this pretty amazing system. So I think most of us are not gonna rival Escalante and his tenacity and the results that he got with his students, his results are so far outside the norm, they made a movie about this guy. So they made the movie for a good reason, but I think my take away and thinking about this myth of the hero educator is that knowledge about variation, this component that we've talked about, part of Deming System of Profound Knowledge. Knowledge variation... Knowledge about variation tells us that the vast majority of educators perform within the enabling and constraining forces of an organization system.   0:28:35.9 JD: So most teachers, most principals, most superintendents, do not have Escalante's tenacity to set up a brand new system. Most of us just don't have that in us, but we create these mythologies around heroes like this hero teacher, they're embellished, they leave out important details, and I think these hero educators do exist, but they make up a tiny fraction of the educators in the United States, and same thing on the flip side, teachers, especially in the last decade or so, have caught a lot of slack are often blamed for test results and other sort of ills of the education system, but what I've found, and I think what the research bears out is that on the other side of the hero spectrum, those that are unfit, that really shouldn't be in front of a classroom of students, that's also a very tiny fraction of the educator workforce.   0:29:37.7 JD: And that the point I would take away is that all of this points to the fact that it's really the system where the vast majority of the improvement potential lies. So you get this hero educator myth, it makes for good drama in Hollywood, but it's a really, really poor strategy for educational transformation and improvement.   0:30:00.9 JD: We sort of go back to these myths, whether it's best practices, "Why don't you guys do it like them? They can do that over there, you make it work in your system. Well, if this guy in California can do this, why can't you do it over here?" But it's really not about the individuals, it's about creating these strong systems where the vast majority of people that are sort of in that... A majority bucket, not the heroes, not those that probably shouldn't be in front of students, how could we make the systems work for those folks? I think that's sort of my take away from that myth.   0:30:42.2 AS: Yeah, in fact... So a couple of things I was thinking about. The first thing is, I bet you if we go there and look at what's the progress in what he did, that in some cases, you could see it's all gone, because some opposing person who was upset by it or didn't agree with it, or didn't like the idea of one person standing out to that extent knocked it down. I watched the education... There was a master's in marketing program here in Thailand at one of the universities that was, I would say, world class. The lady who ran it was amazing, and what she and another guy built out of it was really about 30 years of continuous improvement. They just kept improving.   0:31:30.6 AS: And so it really was an impressive program and there was a new dean of the school that came in and he didn't like it, and he didn't like that person, and he basically, between him and his forces, knocked it out and destroyed it, and it's completely gone, and that was an interesting example that I saw. So the first point is that, is it really lasting improvement? Well, we have to admire the people who have so much tenacity, and we definitely wanna get everything that we can to improve the system, but just that one person rising up does not mean that the system's gonna necessarily be improved.   0:32:12.6 AS: So that's the first thing I thought about. The second thing I thought about was, one of the amazing defining qualities of McDonalds is everywhere you go, and I've eaten McDonalds everywhere in the world, basically. Now, we can debate about the quality of the food, but I would say that the consistency is amazing, and it's done with... That back in America when I was young, it was done with 16-year-olds on summer break, and it was done because they continually improved the system to make it so that the worker could deliver that consistent quality, and any new idea had to be implemented... Had to be able to be implemented worldwide in that system or else it wasn't gonna get into the system. So those are two things that I was just thinking about. How do those relate to this myth of the hero educator?   0:33:10.7 JD: Yeah, I think those are spot on, and I think it could be... When you build a system like Jaime Escalante did in his school, I think it could be drove...The undoing could be nefarious, a new principal could come in that just doesn't like it sort of comparable to what you were talking about, or probably what happens in a lot of cases where an amazing system has been built but it's completely reliant on that hero, once Jaime Escalante retires, it's very possible that that system then collapsed and not because anybody was working against it necessarily, but it could have been just without him and he was such an important part of it. Which would probably speak to what type of system was set up in the first place. Now, without him sort of pulling the levers, then it's very possible, but that would be enough in and of itself for that system not to live on to this day.   0:34:12.8 AS: Now, I can imagine an educator or an executive administrative, he's like, "What are you guys talking about? That was my only hope is to find this hero that could take us to the next level, and now you're just saying, no, no." I'm just curious, thinking about it from that perspective.   0:34:34.1 JD: Well, it's better because I think this is better because it doesn't rely on the hero. I think the same... I think a group of people, certainly have to be dedicated, you have to wanna change the system, but a group of people putting in place a strong process, I think is the point of all of this. That that's really what we wanna do. Do you need strong leadership? Sure, sure you do. But it's necessary, but not sufficient to building systems, you need a group of people working together and putting strong processes in place, processes that are strong enough, whether an individual or individuals over time moving on as they are inevitably really gonna do that the system or that set of processes remains intact. And I think that's what a system like Toyota, who you talked about earlier, that's what they've been able to do.   0:35:40.3 JD: People have changed over the years since the Toyota production system was put in place, but a lot of those processes, of course, they're continually being improved, but they put the process in place that wasn't reliant on any single individual to remain in, say, the CEO position and to ensure that that process or those set of processes would continue over time, that's the whole point of this, so you don't wanna be reliant on a single sort of hero educator or a hero engineer or whatever it is, you want the process... The system be strong enough that it continues to work even after that person retires or moves on to another position or whatever.   0:36:22.9 AS: So we've got two myths here. First a myth of best practices, and then the myth of the hero educator. And in wrapping up, let me just briefly summarize. So in the idea of the best practices, the main point that you're pointing out is be careful about trying to build an amalgamation of best practices, you have to understand where that best practice was developed and what was the context that it was developed under, and then you have to think about how that best practice could potentially fit into your system, and that may be the best idea here is rather than trying to just pull together a bunch of best practices to think about one or two new ideas that could be built into the system to improve the system of education. That's number one.   0:37:16.3 AS: And the myth of the hero educator is just to remember that the outlier educators, both on the great side and on the poor side, are very small group of people, very... And so to think that we can create lasting change from the power and energy of, let's say that really exceptional person is probably making a wrong bet and it's better to then think about, "How can we take from the energy of this person and implement the things that they're doing in such a way that we can build them as some lasting improvement in the system of education so that it doesn't just disappear when that man or woman disappears?" Would that be a summary? Or anything you would add to that?   0:38:09.0 JD: Yeah, it's a great summary. I think the only thing I'd add to the best practices is coming up out of a Nation at Risk, many, many times the reforms were like, if you just do X practice, whatever that thing was, standards or a certain curriculum, there's that under appreciation of context over and over and so I think the PDSA, the Plan-Do-Study Act cycle is a powerful driver for testing ideas in your context on a small scale. First, before moving on to a larger and larger scale until you get to full system-wide implementation. So I think your summary is perfect, I'll just add in the power of that PDSA as a part of figuring out what works in your particular system, in your particular context.   0:38:50.8 JD: Yeah, and with the hero educator, you mentioned you got the hero educator on one side, the positive side, those that probably shouldn't be in front of the classroom with kids on the other side, tiny fractions, a lot of what came out of a Nation at Risk, especially maybe from 2000 on targeted individual teacher performance, thinking that you could get rid of the bad teachers. But again, it's a tiny fraction of the educator workforce, and even if you did that, it's not gonna make a difference because the vast majority of people are in this sort of middle ground that needs strong leadership and strong systems, if we're gonna transform schools.   0:39:35.9 AS: So to wrap up here, we have management myths that keep fooling us, we've got myth number one, best practices and myth number two, hero educator. And we've got more myths to come up in our next episode, which I'm really looking forward to. I think these have sparked discussions and thinking about how to create lasting change and improvement in education. John, on behalf of everyone on the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember, go to deming.org to continue your journey, this is your host Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work.”

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Is there a secret weapon for improvement? Yes! John and Andrew discuss how students fit into improvement projects - and how that translates to businesses. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.0 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is "Engaging Students is the Secret Weapon for Improvement". John, take it away.   0:00:28.0 John Dues: Andrew, it's great to be back with you on the podcast. Yeah, this is sort of a revelation to me when I was working with... It's actually working with David Langford, and we were talking about, "How do you bring about improvement in schools," and at one point, he said to me, to kinda give it away at the top of the program here, "Students are sitting right in front of you, and they are the secret weapon when it comes to school improvement." Engaging them in those improvement processes is really the secret to improvement, because almost everything we want to improve in schools has to do with students, but we almost never directly engage them in this improvement process. It was so obvious they're sitting right there in front of me, but it wasn't until David said it that way that I said, "Oh, my gosh, all this time." Of course, as a classroom teacher or a principal, students were sometimes tangentially involved in improvement efforts, but how many times are they central to it, how many times do we put the data that we want to improve right in front of the students and elicit ideas for improvement as we watch that data move up and down over time? So it was a real sort of eye-opener for me to start thinking in that way.   0:01:50.8 AS: It's funny 'cause when I first started teaching many years ago, teaching finance, I was always worried that I would get a question that I couldn't answer. And what I came to learn from that was that a question that I couldn't answer is a great opportunity for a discussion. And then I would basically say, "Hmm, well, what do you think is the answer?" Now, in a way, I was playing a little bit of a trick 'cause I was deflecting the fact that I didn't have an answer. But I said, "What do you think? Okay, what do you think?" And then we started to construct and answer to that as best we could. And it took a lot of pressure off me because I realized that that discussion was a fine discussion to be had in the classroom around a topic that I wasn't exactly sure how to answer.   0:02:37.9 JD: Yeah, I think all of us try to hide our weaknesses, especially early on. We gain experience, it gets more comfortable to say, "I don't know," which is a fine thing to do as a experienced classroom teacher as well. And I'm thinking about in this context involving students, probably the best ideas for improvement are living right there with them, just like even if you didn't know the answer in your early classrooms, that sort of elicited a discussion that maybe was richer than it would have been otherwise. So I think, yeah in either case, involving students is a real sort of key to this improvement process, whether it's a single teacher in front of a classroom of college students in your case, or in my case, where we're trying to improve our system of schools.   0:03:30.7 AS: In my Valuation Master Class Boot Camp, which is like an online course, I have so much more flexibility than you have in high school. But I found one of the students was just really engaging and really supportive of the other students, so I hired him. And I said, "Why don't you become student experience? That's... Your job is about bringing that great student experience." And then whenever I kick off the Valuation Master Class Bootcamp, I ask prior graduates to come and speak and tell the students, give them some advice, and tell about the transformation that they went through in that course. So on the first day of class, they're inspired and encouraged, and then throughout the class, they've got a prior student guiding them and helping them get through where he knows are the most difficult parts. But you don't have that kind of flexibility, I would guess in your setting. Tell us more about that.   0:04:30.2 JD: Yeah, I think well, one I think that example that you just told is outstanding, and I actually think... I think it's a little bit of a misnomer. There are a lot of regulations, there are a lot of handcuffs on... To certain things in terms of what we can do and what we can't do. But actually we have fairly wide latitude. We're a small public charter school network, so we maybe even have more latitude than the typical traditional public school. We have the latitude of a district, so we're making decisions for district of schools, basically. And we're small, we're pretty nimble. We think innovation is pretty important. We think continual learning is important, and we put some processes in place to elicit that. Where there can be some roadblocks here and there, I think one of my jobs is actually find a way around those roadblocks, if they're in service of our mission and in service of helping students be educated at a higher level.   0:05:29.4 AS: So what I do is I ask the students at the end of the whole course, I say, "Tell me what you learned. What is the number-one thing that you took away," that type of thing. And I'm putting them in a pretty intense situation for six intense weeks, but then they've got a record of that, they've thought through that. And then when they come back, then they can share, "Here's what I went through, and here's my advice on how to get through it." And it is an idea in a school to say, having a list of the people who made it through the class on the wall.   0:06:03.4 AS: And then another idea is to find one or two students that would say... Come back and talk to the students to say, "Okay, this class is about American history, and the one thing that just lit me on fire is the story of Philip Sheridan when he was attacking... The US cavalry, was attacking the southern cavalry, and how he knocked out Jeb Stuart, and it just got me reading all this stuff from blah, blah, blah, blah, and then... " So, of course, that's big brainstorming, but that's an idea.   0:06:33.5 JD: Yeah, I think that... You said a six-week course. What you're describing is essentially that Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, so I could see a scenario where in your six-week course where you run a PDSA on how are we gonna improve the class. And at the end, when you get to that act, you sort of decide with the class... What should I focus on for the next PDSA with the next class. And so in that way, you'd sort of be... Assuming you're re-teaching this class on an ongoing basis, you'd be sort of continually improving, and that's really the sort of... We talked about the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, the PDSA cycle, the last couple sessions, that's really what it is. It's where you leave off at the end of that cycle and you decide what you're gonna do next, feeds into that second cycle of improvement. So whether you called it that or not, it sounds like you're basically running PDSAs with the finance classes that you're teaching.   0:07:34.6 AS: Yeah. In fact, at the end of the class, I ask them another question, which is, what could we do to improve? And...   [chuckle]   0:07:43.3 JD: It's perfect.   0:07:45.5 AS: So the question... The problem that I faced was that the students said I want more one-on-one feedback, that they submit their assignment and they just get pass/fail or a grade and they don't get the feedback that they wanted. And really, I have to say, I was kind of upset about this reply because I felt like, "I can't do it, it's too many students," and my goal is to grow it so that I've got 100 or 500 students. How am I gonna scale it if it's about personal feedback? So we talked about it a lot for the next Boot Camp that came up, because we had seen this complaint coming up, and we came up with this idea. And I said, "Maybe... " And this... Part of this is talking to people like you and David Langford and others, maybe we need to do more work on clarifying the assignment. And so we went back and I said, "Look, every week we need to make it super clear on Monday what's the assignment for the week."   0:08:48.3 AS: And we even provided them kind of a score card of the way we're gonna look at it. "Did you do this? If you did that, you get a point. Did you do that? Did you check your grammar," whatever. And so we got much more clear, and then what we decided to do was to say, "Look, the teams will meet in the week, they always meet once a week, and they need to pick one or two people to present that on Friday." And then what we had is, we had the students present their work, just the best of the best, and I would say not the best of the best, but the ones that shows... Said, "I'm ready and I can do that," and then myself and my team gave them feedback after they presented, and said, "Okay, see that? Try to fix that. Make sure that you don't... " And then once we did that, what I then did is I took notes throughout those and recorded those, and then I improved again the description of the assignments and the common mistakes that people made. And so the next time that we did it, the next launch of the Valuation Master Class Bootcamp, we now had an even more clear focus on what you've got to do by the end of this week.   0:10:00.1 AS: And then finally, what I did is I called it Feedback Friday. And I said, "A whole week, we're working on a bunch of stuff but the end result is on Feedback Friday. One person, two people from your team is gonna present and you're gonna get critiqued and see how you do, and everybody's gonna watch that, it's gonna be recorded. Anybody can go through that." So we've been doing Feedback Friday now for three bootcamps and I would say all of the complaints related to feedback and not enough personal feedback are gone. And it wasn't through personal feedback that we resolved the issue of not getting enough personal feedback.   0:10:35.0 JD: Yeah. Well, that's a PDSA cycle for sure. Another thing I think of is what you... Sounds like you did over time as you iterated this class, and how you gave feedback, you actually found the actual root cause that was causing the problem. And the third thing I was thinking of, 'cause you talked about complaints, one thing we can do is overreact to complaints. So that's another thing that you could do is put the complaints on a process behavior chart, and if you get to a certain number, that might sort of signal that you have an issue. Otherwise, there may be an acceptable level... Number of complaints and... Or a third level analysis is, it's a stable number of complaints but the number is not acceptable to you as the instructor and so you wanna go about improving the whole system. It sounds like that's exactly what you did, sort of what we've talked about the last couple sessions, is you chart something, whether it's quantitative or qualitative data, you're keeping track of that, and then you're tagging it to this structured improvement process. And, yeah, it sounds like you're running the PDSA cycles for the class. It's pretty cool.   0:11:57.1 AS: That's a comforting message for the listeners and the viewers because what it tells you is that you don't have to be super official and have all of the tools that we learn from Dr. Deming's teachings that... First, is to start with the thought process. And my first thought process is, "I want my Valuation Master Class Bootcamp to be the best course in the world." That's all I want, just the best in the world, so I'm constantly wanting to improve. The second thing, I do not ever focus on competitors because my course is just so different, and all I focus on is the students. The third thing is I'm getting feedback on a consistent basis from the student about what they like and what it's worth to them. Because I also ask them, "Now that you understand exactly what's in the Valuation Master Class Bootcamp, what is the price that you think I should charge for this?" And my goal is that that price continues to rise as the perception of the value of the course rises. So I'm getting feedback, and then I'm looking at that feedback and I'm trying to identify what I think is the most important feedback that we've got to somehow resolve.   0:13:13.3 AS: And then I'm coming up with a theory that how, "Okay, wait a minute, if we clarify more about what we want, maybe that's gonna help, but even if we clarified our assignment, it wouldn't have helped the feedback. They still could have had the same problem of, "We're not getting any feedback." But then it was the idea of coming up with the Feedback Friday and really naming it. And that's what I've learned from the world of marketing and all that, is that you've got to name something and repeat it. And so all of that is... And then I keep wanting to repeat that process, which is why I love doing the bootcamp 'cause it's six weeks, every 10 weeks or so I do it again, and that gives us a perfect opportunity. And that's what teachers are doing, they're doing again and again, right?   0:13:53.9 JD: Yeah, yeah, and it makes me think... I'm obviously living in a different world than you in terms of who the students are and who the customer is. But we... In our network of schools, we have two elementary schools, two middle schools, and a lot of your description makes me think of this first ever PDSA cycle we ran a few years ago when we were working on an improvement project we called Eighth Grade On Track, which is just like what it sounds. How do we make sure that our eighth graders are on track to go to high school? We don't have a high school in our network, but we have a high school placement process. One of the things that parents expect of us is that their child is well-prepared to go to a good academically-oriented high school once they leave us, and, of course, high schools are also expecting that from us. So the parents are the customer expecting certain things from our schools. The high schools that we feed into are expecting certain things from our schools. So of course we can't fulfill our mission, we can't be an important part of that sort of education system, if we're not preparing our students to leave us as eighth graders and matriculate into a solid high school.   0:15:09.4 JD: And I remember working through, what does it mean to be on track in eighth grade to predict that you're gonna go on and be on track and do well in high school? One of the interesting things that, as I was reading some research out of the University of Chicago on this, was that when you look at students in middle school, you see grades start to drop that's actually a leading indicator of things to come in high school, which makes a lot of sense, 'cause if you start to experience academic issues in middle school, high school is a little harder, academically, plus some of the supports that are in place in elementary and middle school start to drop away so that makes perfect sense. Bs drop to Ds in middle school, and Ds drop to Fs in high school. And, man, if you're off track, even in your ninth grade year, students have a lot of trouble bouncing back from that. So I remember there was a student I was working with named James and this exact thing happened.   0:16:19.4 JD: I was looking at his grades, I was looking at his GPA, his attendance, his discipline record in sixth grade and everything was on track. In seventh grade, it was mostly on track. Things were looking pretty good. And then all of a sudden, here we are in the first trimester of eighth grade, and his reading grade dropped from a B in seventh grade all the way down to a D in that first trimester. In a lot of places, that's not gonna... Especially if the rest of his grades are pretty good, good attendance, he never was in trouble, he's not gonna get on a lot of people's radar. But we have this on-track system in place, so once we saw that data, our team, we said, "Wait a second, James was on track in sixth grade, on track in seventh grade, and now all of a sudden, he's off track in eighth grade," and we started asking why. So we're adults, we're sitting around the table in a conference room, "Why is James off track? Why is he off track in eighth grade? Well, his B in seventh grade dropped to a D."   0:17:25.8 JD: "Well, why is that? Why did that grade drop from B to D?" We're looking at his scores, and he's got pretty high reading test scores in his class. And then we look at his homework grade. His home grade's really low in his eighth grade reading class. And so then we asked this next question, "Why is James' eighth grade reading homework grade low?" And then we get stuck, and this goes back to this whole point of this episode, which is students are the improvement secret weapon. So we're sitting around this table and we say, "How do we figure this out? Why is his reading grade and homework grade, low? Let's go get it. Let's go get it." [chuckle]   0:18:10.5 AS: And for the people who are working in a manufacturing company listening to this, it's like sitting in your office above the factory...   0:18:19.1 JD: Exactly.   0:18:19.9 AS: And looking at the chart and thinking, "I wonder why this is happening."   0:18:24.0 JD: "Why this happening?" Yeah. So this is when the conversation gets really interesting. We had never done this before. We go get James on the spot from his eighth grade classroom and say, "Hey, we're doing this thing where we're just trying to figure out what's going on with your grades."   0:18:40.0 JD: We're asking some "why" questions. We're basically using the 5 why tool, we have a piece of chart paper and listing these things out, and so now we've invited him into the room, we just say, "Why is your reading homework grade low?" And he says, "Well, I really do the easier less-time-consuming homework first, math and science and history are fairly easy for me. So I do those first." A pretty typical answer from an eighth grade boy, and so what he's basically saying is he does his reading homework last, "Well, why do you do your reading homework last?"   0:19:28.9 JD: "Well, I don't like doing my reading homework, it's too much work." "Why do you dislike doing your reading homework?" "It's too much work. It takes too much time. I wait to the last possible moment." And we said, "Well, what is the last possible moment mean?" And he said, "Well, I usually not only do it last, I do it on the bus ride to school in the morning." It's dark. It's bumpy. That's the worst possible place to do the hardest homework, but that's what he's doing 'cause he does wanna get it done, he wants to turn in something, but he's not putting any type of effort, so now what we've uncovered is, why is it exactly that his homework grade is low?   0:20:02.9 JD: Now, if I was just an administrator sitting in my office, I could see that D and say, "James needs to go to after school tutoring," or "James needs to do this," or "James news to do that." But none of that, like what you were talking about with the student complaints in your class, none of that would have been the actual root cause of James' reading homework problem. So then we said, "Okay, now we know what the problem is, what are we gonna do about it?"   0:20:35.6 JD: And I had just learned about this Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle thing, and I said, "Well, let's sit down and write... Literally write out a simple PDSA with James." And the basic question was, if we could do reading homework first, could we raise that homework grade to at least a 70%? So we kinda looked at what his homework grade had been and what he needed to do to pass, and so that's what we settled on. We said, "James, what do you think about doing your reading Homework first?" And again, typical eighth grader here's where some of the psychology comes in, he says, "I don't know...   0:21:09.6 JD: I don't know if I really wanna do this. I don't think it's gonna work. I hate reading, I hate my reading homework," I said, "James, I hate getting up in the morning and running, but when I do it... When I get myself to do it, I feel better." He said, "Oh yeah okay, I could buy that." And I said, "Could you try this for just five days," and he looked at me, he kind of nods and I said, "No," I literally got up out of my chair, he got up out of his chair to go back to class and I said, "I need you to look me in the eye and shake my hand and tell me you can do this for five days." And he said, "Sure, I think I can do this."   0:21:54.1 JD: He said, "At the end of the day, when I'm sitting in my homeroom class, when we work on homework... Do you mind if I sort of sit in the back of the room so I can concentrate better?" "No problem. Great." So we write this down for the next five days, James is gonna work on is reading homework first, we tell the teacher that's in the homeroom so she can check to make sure he's actually doing that, and then we talked to the reading teacher and said, "Hey, can you give us James' last five assignments in reading and can you put the next five in this table to see if this is working." So just over the next five days, he does this, I check in with his homeroom teacher... Yep, he's working on his homework at the kidney table back in the back of the room.   0:22:33.5 JD: And then we start seeing the data come in, so whereas... Right before this intervention, it's one out of five, that's a 20%, three out of five, that's a 60%, three out of five... Those types of grades. First homework comes in five out of five, second homework comes in a three out of five. It's gonna take some time. Then it's 6.75 out of 10, it's five out of five, four out of five. And you start seeing this sort of momentum building, and after five days, he not only has a C on those assignments, he's very nearly got a B. And so we're studying this. And we're saying, "This seems like it's working pretty well." He sort of out-did even our predictions, and so we go to him and say, "What do you think about this sort of reading homework-first intervention?" And he says, "Yeah, it's going pretty well."   0:23:27.3 JD: "You're gonna keep doing it?" "Yeah, let's keep doing it." We design a second PDSA, We're gonna check in in two weeks now, so you can kinda see how this process goes, you create this very small plan, the student was hesitant, but he gave really great answers, insights into why his grade was low, he helped develop the plan, so now he's intrinsically motivated, 'cause this wasn't something that we did to him, we did it with him, and he's starting to get some momentum, he had some immediate success.   0:24:06.7 JD: And so you can see even just the small little change had this huge impact on this kid, and then he starts to build this momentum, and this has really changed a lot about how we approach changes, whereas before we'd sit in a room and plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, and then you go implement, you're like, "Oh man, I wasn't expecting this to happen, I wasn't expecting this to happen, I wasn't expecting this... " In five days, we went and saw "What would happen if we put this plan in place," and it worked pretty well, and all of a sudden we're gonna do it for 10 days instead of instead of five days.   0:24:40.3 AS: So let's just break it down for the... For the listeners to understand, we often talk about PDSA and all that, I think the first lesson that I would take from what you've said is that, yes, it can be a formal thing where we sit down and write down Plan-Do-Study-Act, and we go through it in a formal way, but it can also be just an informal process that we go through, but let's just break it down. They'll... Explain to us, P-D-S-A, how does that break down for this specific thing?   0:25:14.1 JD: Yeah, so the P would be the plan. And so I think the important thing to keep in mind here, is one... We wrote it down. You know, that sounds simple, but that's a big first step. We wrote the plan down, we made a prediction, we said, if James does this reading homework-first intervention, we predict that he'll have a 70% or higher on each of his homework assignments over the next five days, so we've quantified what we think is gonna happen. Then it's just the who, what, where, when, and of the plan. So it was literally like on March 22nd, 23rd, 26th, 27th and 28th.   0:25:54.7 JD: So on the next five school days, James is gonna work at the back kidney table, he's gonna work on his reading homework first, his homeroom teacher, Ms. Kramer, she knows that this plan is being put in place and she's just gonna check that he is working on his reading homework and then his reading teacher who is. Dr. Brennan, she said, "I'll record his homework scores as I get them over the course of each of those five days, so we can see if this is in fact having the sort of success that we think it is." So the plan is our hunch, it's really our theory about how we're gonna improve James' reading grade, but we don't know if that's actually connected to the real world in terms of if it's gonna be successful or not, until we actually put it in place. So we made a prediction, we made a plan that plan included who's doing what, when, and then it also included a plan for collecting just a little bit of data to see if this PDSA is on track so that's the P, the plan.   0:27:03.9 JD: In terms of the Do then after those five days, we just came back together as a team and just said, "What actually happened? Did James go and sit at the back kidney table? Did he do that each of the five days? Did he work on his reading homework first?" And it actually... This is a pretty simple plan and it's only over the course of five days, so in terms of implementation, the Do, everything matched exactly with what we put in the plan, and part of that is because the plan was simple, straight forward and on a really, really, really short time frame.   0:27:43.1 AS: So that is him doing the plan executing the plan.   0:27:44.4 JD: Us running the tests. Yeah us running the tests. Now on the study, the difference between the Do and the Study is the Study has... That the plan has been run, the test has been run, and now we have the data in and so we looked at what happened for the five days before we started the study, and over the course of those five days, he had gotten a 53% average on his homework on those five days pre-intervention, after the intervention began over those next five days, he earned a 79% average on his homework, and that 79% was 9% higher than what we had predicted, so the intervention actually went better than we thought at the outset, so that gives us evidence...   0:28:36.1 JD: That one, we know what we're doing in terms of creating the plan in the first place, and two, that the implementation can actually be put into effect in a real school, in real classrooms, with all the constraints that you have with time and all that, all that stuff. And I think another big thing besides writing it down, besides having the structure of this PDSA, we had James, we had James there, so I think it was a pretty good plan because of that. And so...   0:29:01.6 AS: And then, so what happened? Okay, so we've got the Study and what about Act? What does act mean in this case?   0:29:09.3 JD: Yeah, I think I mentioned this in one of the last two podcasts that when I think of Act, I'm gonna do one of three As, I'm gonna either Abandon the idea that we put in place 'cause it didn't go so well, I'm going to Adapt the idea 'cause some of it went pretty well, but maybe there are some things that need to be tweaked or iterated on, or I'm gonna Adopt it, this intervention went so well that it's gonna become a part of my system.   0:29:41.3 JD: So in this case, because we've only done this over five days and it was successful, but that's a pretty short time period, now we're gonna adapt it, we're gonna adapt it. And in this case, we're gonna... We call this thing reading homework first, that's the name of the intervention or change idea. Now, instead of five days, we're gonna do this for 10 days, and then one other piece of the Act is going back to the appreciation for a system component, that you can improve one part of a system and destroy the rest of it, that sort of idea. We're focused on reading. And everything else was pretty good when we started this focus, but we wanna look at James' whole system. In this case, we're talking about grades, so we're not gonna do sight of writing class and math class, and science and social studies, those types of things, because we're all focused only on reading, so we added that as a sort of a second component to the second cycle so we're gonna run a little longer. We're also gonna add his other grades to the data we're collecting just to make sure that those things stay on track.   0:30:53.4 AS: And one of the lessons I've learned, John, in the stock market where I basically spent most of my life is that you have to also double-check that your process didn't go wrong in some particular area or is biased, for instance, just the fact that we're paying attention to James... And maybe the teacher is gonna grade things slightly different now because they know that we're looking and we're trying for improvement, and so you also have to ask questions and try to understand where the biases are because you may come to a conclusion, "Wow, this is great." And then you wanna think, "I'm gonna apply this more across more students or across more systems," and then you find out that it starts to fail and why does it fail because there was some kind of fatal flaw in the process. Do you have any thoughts on that?   0:31:43.1 JD: Yeah, I think that goes back that I think... Something we've talked about very early-on in this series, maybe in episode one or two. This idea is there are goals for accountability and then there's goals for improvement, and I think... Now bias can happen at any point, for sure, because we are paying attention to this more, but when you're in a system and the goals are accountability-focused, you're much more likely to get that sort of nefarious or "I'm gonna change my behavior, maybe not in the best way, because I have to meet this goal - my job's at stake, or... "   0:32:30.2 AS: In other words, when you talk about goals for accountability, let's say that you went to that teacher and said, "You're gonna get a bonus if this one particular case is able to really improve." Okay, now you've brought in a whole another element into this thing.   0:32:41.1 JD: Yeah, that would be the carrot side or the stick side, you know, "If this kid's homework doesn't improve, you're gonna get a bad rating." Something like that, and that... Like I said, I think there's still always potential for bias or doing some things subconsciously in terms of how hard your grading him or something like that, but I think it's much less likely to happen if we're sitting down and saying as a group, "Hey, what can we do to improve James' approach to reading class?" Versus those things that we just talked about, whether it's a carrot or a stick, a ranking that could be impacted, those types of things.   0:33:20.1 JD: I think in focusing on improvement-oriented goals, you're much less likely to sort of see that... See that type of behavior. I think a lot of it goes back to what's the aim, what's the aim or objective of the PDSA, what's the aim of your system in general, what's the orientation you have in terms of how you manage as a principal, the teachers or the teachers managing the students, I think that's where you have to be careful. And this sort of improvement orientation, I think helps overall rating and ranking accountability-driven system.   0:33:58.4 AS: So let me try to summarize a little bit about what we've talked about, and for the listeners, this is kind of our way of trying to make sure that we all learn from what John's sharing here. So the first thing you were telling the story about how it's important when eighth graders leave because you're preparing them for high school, and you talked about the idea of being on track and when somebody starts to fall that it's hard to bounce back, and then you identified James.   0:34:26.8 AS: And then you said, "Okay, we saw something sliding there from a B to a D, and that was his reading grade," and you thought, "What could we do about this?" And your first reaction was to sit back in your offices looking at the data and thinking about it, but instead you say, "Well, let's just bring him in here and talk to him." So this is the secret weapon you're talking about is getting the student involved, then you went through a PDSA, so let's just try to review that briefly, so the plan is, you guys came up with an idea and you wrote it down, and you had...   0:34:58.6 AS: Like who, what, where, when? So that it was clear what was gonna be done, also you made a prediction, because if you don't make a prediction, you don't have some sort of theory, it's very difficult to really understand what happened, and as Dr Deming says, "Without a theory, there is no knowledge." And you also had a plan for collecting the data too, to make sure that you had that. Then Do, meaning that you ran the tests and James did what was planned... In this case, it went well, 'cause he actually did it, and then after that, you have to Study where...   0:35:36.1 AS: After the test was run, so the test has to be run first, the Do has to happen first, then you started to compare the outcome to your prediction, and as you said, it was slightly better than the prediction that you had made, and then you came to the Act section, where you had to think, "Well, do I abandon... " "Do we abandon this? Do we adapt it? Or do we adopt it?" And part of what you said was that it's about adapting a little bit, maybe and saying, "Okay, what we've... " "We've identified this as reading homework first, maybe now we're gonna test that on a 10-day basis," but you also had to think about it.   0:36:07.9 AS: This is a critical part, you had to think holistically, you had to think systems thinking, because your objective was not to increase the performance in one area at the cost of another, so you had to look at it holistically, and finally, we talked about the risks that something like, this can go wrong. And if you're tying goals to accountability to the people involved, and all of a sudden they're being punished or rewarded based upon the outcome of that result, it's gonna be much more risk that it's not gonna go properly compared to looking at goals for improvement, anything that you would add to that?   0:36:45.2 JD: I think that was a really perfect summary. I think it was spot on. Spot on and the only thing I'd say is not every PDSA is gonna work that smoothly, I think, but it illustrates the key points of what a PDSA is, how simple it can be, how to connect ideas that are sort of in the universe to reality, what actually happens in actual classrooms and schools when you try something. I think that's the power of the PDSA. I think you nailed it in your summary.   0:37:17.2 AS: So ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. What's something that you can do a PDSA on, just like John has described to us? And what improvements could that bring, and most importantly for the teachers and the administrators out there, my question to you is, do you realize that engaging students is the secret weapon for improvement? John, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion and for listeners remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming, and that is people are entitled to joy in work.  

In 1944, Bill Wynne who was serving with the U.S. Army during World War II, adopted a tiny Yorkshire terrier called Smoky. When Bill caught dengue fever and was sent to hospital, his friends brought Smoky to see him. Soon the nurses were taking Smoky to visit other patients who had been wounded in the Biak Island invasion. She had a powerful healing effect on the soldiers and is believed to be one of the world's first therapy dogs. Reena Stanton-Sharma talks to Bill's friend Adrian Brigham about Smoky, her role in World War II, and her TV career. Archive: University of Tennessee, PDSA, WCPN. (Photo: Bill Wynne and Smoky (centre) at the Vaughan General Hospital, in Illinois. Credit: Smoky War Dog, LLC)

In this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast, Dr. Janet Pilcher invites Sergio Mendoza, Superintendent of Burton School District in Porterville, California, to discuss his retirement announcement and journey as a leader in education. Listen as Sergio discusses key tools, such as scorecards and PDSA cycles, that he has used to cultivate a culture that drives continuous growth.Recommended Resources: Go All In to Improve, Make Complex Work Simple, Organizational Scorecard Examples, & PDSA Cycles Template

Author, podcaster, and consultant Episode page Joining us for Episode #473 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Elisabeth Swan, author of the new book Picture Yourself a Leader: Illustrated Micro-Lessons for Navigating Change. It's currently the #1 new release in the Amazon TQM category… Elisabeth has consulted in the business process performance industry for over 30 years. Her experience spans from helping local non-profits expand their reach to guiding Fortune 100 companies through Lean Transformations. She has trained and mentored thousands of people in improvement projects generating millions in savings. She has deep experience coaching problem solvers and facilitating leadership retreats, strategic planning sessions, process walks, and kaizen events. Elisabeth is the Co-Designer and Lead Instructor for the Lean Six Sigma Leadership Course at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She is a co-founder, with Tracy ORourke, of the Just-in-Time Café and co-host of the Just-in-Time Café podcast. She co-authored, also with Tracy, The Problem Solver's Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide to Your Lean Six Sigma Journey. In today's episode, we discuss her new book and the process for getting there, including the role of feedback, editing, and an editorial board as inputs to iteration and improvement. Questions, Notes, and Highlights: Tell us the story behind the book? Why this book? Why this format? Sketching and drawing during the pandemic? Why illustrate each chapter? Asking people — “What have you figured out?” (PDSA) vs. “what do you know?” Who is the book written for? Lean leadership or just good “leadership” influenced by C.I.?? Do some people have trouble picturing themselves a leader? “The word leader can mean many things” — tell us more about that – how can everybody be a leader? Author talk: Writing and Editing process – PDSA cycles? (Plan, Do, Study, Adjust) Iterating, asking for honest feedback? “The curse of knowledge?” Iterating on the cover design? “Heading off the head scratchers” — acronyms “Perfecting Rework” — you invited me to contribute a “wisdom of the crowd” story here…  W. Edwards Deming's – American way of making toast… 

This week Jen talks about "Miss Unsinkable," Violet Jessop along with some other unsinkable stories! Organization to Support: PDSA – pdsa.org.uk The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) is a veterinary charity in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1917 by Maria Dickin to provide care for sick and injured animals of the poor. It is the UK's leading veterinary charity, carrying out more than one million free veterinary consultations a year, and was until 2009 the largest private employer of fully qualified veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses in the UK; only those living within the PDSA's catchment areas can use their services. LINKS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Jessop https://medium.com/maiden-voyage/miss-unsinkable-the-woman-who-miraculously-escaped-death-aboard-the-titanic-and-her-sisters-b9ed36f9a98 https://medium.com/maiden-voyage/the-story-of-titanics-unsinkable-sister-24c0a2a6ffbb https://nomadflag.com/violet-jessop/ https://houstonmaritime.org/happy-birthday-violet-jessop/ https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/titanic-survivor-violet-jessop-facts https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britannic-sinks-in-aegean-sea https://allthatsinteresting.com/unsinkable-sam https://www.historynet.com/judy-the-english-pointer/ https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/assad-alexander-thomas-tannous.html https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/titanic-dogs https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/remembering-dogs-titanic/ https://www.iizcat.com/post/4296/The-legend-of-Unsinkable-Sam-the-cat-who-served-on-and-survived-3-sinking-ships-during-WW2 https://www.bitesizedbritain.co.uk/unsinkable-sam-also-known-as-oskar-or-oscar-is-the111/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_(dog) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/judy-the-dog-who-became-a-prisoner-of-war