Helping Workers to Do a Better Job

The legendary business statistician, American corporate management consultant, and mentor of the Japanese economic miracle, W. Edwards Deming, was renowned as the master of continual improvement of quality and overall operational efficiency. He ignited a quality-focused revolution in Japan and the USA, due to his influential role in the Japanese economic miracle in the 1960s and revitalizing the American automobile industry in the late 1980s.

Guiding clients such as Toyota, Ford, Xerox, and Proctor & Gamble, Deming shared teachings that were attributed as the cornerstone of success for numerous multi-national organisations.

Deming found only 6% of the problems in industries could be traced to a company’s workforce. He identified 94% of business problems are caused either by management or by the system, but since only management can redesign the system, only management can be blamed if it’s wrong.

His observations still stand true:

  • “A Bad System Will Beat a Good Person Every Time.”
  • “Two basic rules of life are:
    • 1) Change is inevitable.

    • 2) Everybody resists change.”
  • “85% of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and processes rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.”

Deming counselled that just as the workforce has to be trained, so does management through the improvement of their leadership. What is commonly called “supervision” should be considered as operational leadership… helping workers to do a better job; be it factory-floor supervision or corporate policy decision-making, what leaders must do is help people.

Is the Secret Sauce to Business Success that Simple?

Can it be that simple? How do we actually achieve, “The sure-fire improvement of quality and overall operational efficiency process”?

According to the best business experts of the 20th Century (W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, Jack Welch, Sir Richard Branson and more) and the new wave of social media thought leaders (Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty and Gary V. etc.), “it’s all about people!”

Leading consultancies, research analysts and academics agree that people-productivity is the foremost concern in business today.

Of course, many CEOs know that a great corporate culture can be built upon setting up and applying the “why” so that it inspires, through the development and religious (if not fanatical) commitment to a set of MEVPIV statements (Mission, Ethos, Vision, Purpose, Identity and Values).

The MEVPIV:

  • Gets people on “the same page”.
  • Eliminates debate and drives initiatives through without argument,
  • Destroys silos, power-mongering, and office politics.
  • Increasing employee engagement, morale, productivity, and ROSF (return on shareholders’ funds)

But many ALSO know, “the devil is in the doing”!

That means organisations ALSO need to put into place great planning! Planning that evolves out of:

  1. Great situational analysis and response to findings.
  2. Single-minded dedication to the MEVPIV.
  3. Planning with a core based upon sophisticated market orientation.
  4. Attentive monitoring feedback and control of plan implementation.

Heroic rises to fame like Google and Amazon demonstrated the policy of a strong MEVPIV along with a strong market orientation. Strong market orientation saved the American car industry. Apple, on the other hand, is attributed to having a great grasp on total quality management.

Perhaps it is the synergy of people and processes, which was the sentiment that Deming identified over 60 years ago, and generated so much consistent and profound success, that is “the secret sauce” for sure-fire improvement of quality and overall operational efficiency.