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KEYZINE: An e-zine for LEADERS:
ABOUT THE PEOPLE PART OF
BUSINESS
Volume
93, December 2008
Publisher: © Key Associates, 2008
ISSN #
1545-8873
http://www.mkkey.com/
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This Issue: On "Bad Systems, Good People"
Contents:
"The worst part about focusing on keeping out
crappy people,
however, is that it reflects a belief system that “the people
make the place.” The implication is that, once you hire great
people and get rid of the bad ones, your work is pretty much done.
Yet if you look at large scale studies in everything from automobile
industry to the airline industry, or look at Diane Vaughn’s fantastic
book on the space shuttle
Challenger explosion and the well-crafted
report written by the Columbia
Accident Investigation Board, the
evidence is clear: The “rule of law crappy systems” trumps the
“rule of crappy people.””
- Bob Sutton
"The average American
worker has fifty interruptions a day,
of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.”
- W. Edwards Deming
"Every system is perfectly designed to get the
result that it does.”
- W. Edwards Deming
COUNTERING A CULTURE OF BLAME.
USING MEASUREMENT TO IMPROVE, NOT
TO JUDGE.
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MAINTAINING YOURSELF AS A
LEADER
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In our teaching at the Center for Continuous
Improvement, we used the story that, "People generally
do not come to work thinking, 'What can I mess up today?' "
They go to work hoping to do their best, in systems
and processes that are broken. All their "best efforts"
will not overcome poor quality.
Leaders must commit themselves for life to quality
and productivity; they cannot delegate it. That means
that they understand the systems they own, the meaning
of variation, and barriers to pride in workmanship. They
must design systems that build in quality and innovation.
There is no substitute for knowledge.
W. Edwards Deming's Out
of the Crisis and
The
New Economics for Industry, Government, Education.
Henry Neave's
The
Deming Dimension.
Bill Scherkenbach's The
Deming Route to Quality and Productivity.
Mary Walton's The
Deming Management Method.
It is essential to encourage learning and self-improvement
for everyone in your organization, not just the leaders.
What
is wrong with inspiring people to work harder
and do their best?
These exhortations are usually aimed at the wrong people (i.e.,
not
leadership), producing frustration, resentment, and loss of joy in
work.
Pushing people to achieve better quality, have zero defects,
and improve productivity ties to a faulty assumption that
if the workers would just put their backs to it, things
would improve. The fact is that defects, high costs, and
mistakes come from the "system," which is management's
responsibility.
Awarding certain individuals over others, for results that
the system produced, is also demoralizing. "Employee of the
Year."
Merit pay. Teamwork does not thrive on an Annual Rating.
How do you shift from a "Culture of Blame?"
Change the language from "blame" to
"contribution."
All behavior occurs within a system, all parts of which
are by nature, interdependent. Each person involved has made
a contribution to the problem and owns some responsibility.
Begin exploring it that way.
The language shifts from being full of answers to
being full of questions. WHAT and HOW questions,
not WHO and WHY. Speaking from the "I" perspective,
not "You did...." Not RIGHT or WRONG, just
DIFFERENT. The practice of INQUIRY vs. ADVOCACY
(Peter Senge).
EXERCISES AND ACTION ITEMS:
* Holding in hand Deming's 14 Points and
System of Profound Knowledge, target a discussion
on these questions:
- Do we have silos? How do we overcome them?
- What are our "defects"? How are we building them in?
- Where is "fear" in our organization?
- How do we measure "productivity?" How does the
measurement improve productivity?
- Where have we built expectations that people have no control over?
(also refer to questions on pp. 90-92, 156-166 of Out
of the Crisis.)
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EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES
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The best educational opportunities are in the works of,
and about, W. Edwards Deming (see Publications below).
The Institute for Healthcare
Improvement now has free
On-demand Courses and and an Open School, which teach many
Deming- and quality-related topics.
Key Associates facilitates group
experiences that teach
Systems Thinking and the harmful effects of internal competition;
also holds on-site courses on a number of quality topics.
When queried about "Bad Systems, Good People,"
a Google search revealed these prominent themes
(thus little education mentioned):
- Why good people do bad/evil things
- How bad things happen to good people
- How recessions make good people do bad things
- Some ideas on mechanical and systems malfunctions to blame for errors
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OTHER
USEFUL
WEBSITES
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Dr. Deming defining a system
http://www.spcforexcel.com/dr-w-edwards-deming-and-profound-knowledge-part-1
Blog on when bad systems happen to good people
http://www.baileyworkplay.com/2008/04/when-bad-systems-happen-to-good-people/
A humanistic view of healing this problem
http://www.earthethics.com/through_the_tunnel.htm
In defense of "business people"and an antidote
for bad systems
http://www.hodu.com/bad-things.shtml
Former Keyzines on related topics:
Volume 5, August
2001 - Spirit at Work
Volume 18, September
2002 - Organizational Culture
Volume 19, October
2002 - Lean Does Not Have to Be Mean
Volume
35, February 2004 - Employees as Customers
Volume
37, April 2004 - Dialogue: Thinking Together
Volume
39, June 2004 - Bureaucracy
Volume
47, February 2005 - Whither Quality
Volume 50, May 2005 - Picture
of a Process
Volume 71, February
2007 - Lean Organizations
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ARTICLES/PUBLICATIONS
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Ackoff, Russell L. & Sheldon Rovin. Beating
the System
Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies, e-HTML, 2005.
Baker, Edward M. Scoring a Whole in One, Crisp, 1999.
Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis. MIT Press, 1986, 2000.
Deming, W. Edwards. The
New Economics for Industry,
Government, Education. MIT Press, 1993, 2000.
Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems
Thinking - Managing Chaos
and Complexity : a Platform for Designing Business Architecture.
Kindle, 1999.
Hock, Dee. Birth of the Chaordic Age. Berrett-Koehler, 2000.
Joiner, Brian L. Fourth
Generation Management The New
Business Consciousness. McGraw-Hill, 1994.
Kohn, Linda T., Janet M. Corrigan & Molla S. Donaldson.
To
Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. National
Academy Press, 2000.
Neave, Henry R. The Deming Dimension. SPC Press, Inc., 1990.
Pfeffer, Jeff & Robert Sutton. Hard
Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths
and Total Nonsense. Harvard Business School Press, 2006.
Scholtes, Peter R. The
Leader's Handbook: Making Things
Happen, Getting Things Done. McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Senge, Peter M. The
Fifth Discipline The Art and Practice
of the Learning Organization. Broadway Books, 1994.
Scherkenbach, William W. The
Deming Route to Quality and Productivity.
Mercury Business Books, 1991.
Walton, Mary. The Deming Management Method. Perigree Trade, 1988.
Weinberg, Gerald M. An
Introduction to General Systems Thinking.
Dorset House Publishing Company, 2001.
Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership
and the New Science.
Berrett-Koehler, 1994.
