I became interested in organizational behavior and leadership when I tried to understand the breakdown between management and staff at a large state hospital. There was little mutual respect or the means to work together productively toward common goals. It was management against staff and vice versa. There seemed to be a high priority on catching those who made mistakes and punishing them. Later in my career, as I assisted leaders of other organizations to prepare for stricter state and Federal licensing requirements, I learned that many likable, smart, well-intentioned people find it hard to resist the temptation to hold individuals accountable for problems at work.

Then, I came across the work of W. Edwards Deming. In his book, Out of the Crisis, Deming presented a clear rationale against the form of leadership and management I observed. Deming confronted me with some unusual views-he was not a bottom-line, dollars and cents, kind of guy; and he seemed to think that employee performance evaluation was misguided and a waste of time.

A key to understanding Deming's perspective is to understand the breakthrough of statistics in predicting rates of errors or mistakes in the work place. In the case of, say, 20 people working to assemble products over an eight hour day, statistical techniques will, quite successfully, predict the average number of errors or defective products that are produced per hour. Contrary to what you might think and what we have been taught, the rate of errors stays the same even when you change who is doing the assembly. Overall, the rate of errors is controlled, not by those doing the work, but by the way in which the work is done. To reduce the rate of errors, one must change the system, by revamping it (e.g., changing the order of assembly or by adding new tools).

To understand that systems produce errors is to begin to get to the heart of Deming's philosophy of leadership. Deming based his principles for sound leadership on the understanding that a leader can be most effective by improving the system, not by trying to fix employees. It makes sense for a leader be tuned in to those that report to her or him in order to

  1. gain a better understanding of the system,
  2. learn when, how and why the system works (and doesn't work), and
  3. help to improve it.

In a Deming organization, everyone from the CEO down works on behalf of those who report to them, and, ultimately, on behalf of the consumers of the organization's service or product.

Deming made many contributions and, among those that I most value, are his fourteen points. You can search, online, for all of them, but here are some that I find helpful:

  1. Drive out fear and anxiety
    • When people are fearful, they are unlikely to speak candidly and point out problems that may, at the time, be manageable. If people are afraid to identify the problem sooner, the problem may fester and become much more difficult and costly to resolve.
    • Some organizations are very effective at keeping employees from speaking up. In an organization that emphasizes how much better it is than similar organizations or that the employees are fortunate to work there, who wants to be first to suggest that things could be done a different way?
    • I've also observed that in organizations where stress is part of the daily routine, the leaders don't seem very interested in getting opinions that challenge their own. There is a "group think" mentality in organizations like these and they are not as flexible and able to gracefully evolve-think of companies that fail to anticipate changes that affect their business.
    • The leader's job is to be sure that the workplace is a place where individuals are treated with dignity and respect.
  2. Work to achieve unity of effort
    • As fear and anxiety is reduced, it's possible to work together to establish and work towards common goals.
    • The question to answer is not, "Are we there, yet?" Rather, the question is "Are we all traveling in the same direction?"
  3. Eliminate obstacles to continuous improvement
    • I find this to be remarkably helpful as I try to support and help those who report to me-I can simply ask "Is there anything getting in your way?"
    • Seeing this as a process of continuous improvement helps me to avoid a right/wrong frame of mind. As long as things are getting better, that's all that matters.
  4. The most important numbers are either unknown or unknowable
    • Dollars, number of sales, mistakes, number of units of service can all be easy to measure, but are they truly reflective of what your organization or organizational unit is trying to accomplish? Are dollars earned really a measure of how good a physician is? Is the number of beds filled really a measure of the quality of a hospital? Is number of students graduating really a measure of the quality of a high school?
    • As leaders, we have to try to align our measures with our mission. That will be hard since what we are really trying to accomplish may not be directly measurable.
  5. Stop wasting time measuring individual performance
    • If you believe that mistakes are caused by systems, not by individuals, then the time spent on individual performance reviews doesn't make sense. In fact, the performance appraisal system may be a source of fear and anxiety.
    • The concept of a probationary employment period originally made sense to me: During that period the employer and employee have a chance to get to know one another and see if there is a good fit. For about 20 years, I have acted on Deming's advice, and I try to do my homework up front, before the individual is hired. Once hired, I'm committed to that individual. I encourage others who report to me to do that as well. On a couple of occasions, we've had to review someone's performance and explain that a) they do not seem to be doing the quality of work anticipated, but b) we are committed to helping them do that quality of work and c) we would like to learn how to best support them.
    • If an individual does not work out in a position, I try to find another home for the individual within the organization.
    • If you still need to do performance reviews, try to make them learning opportunities for you as well as opportunities to discuss obstacles to continuous improvement.
  6. Adopt this new philosophy
    • This may be the hardest principle of all to apply since most of these points run counter to my tendency to see individuals as responsible for success or failure.

No matter where one finds oneself within an organization-middle manager or CEO-I think it's useful and wiser to try to understand and apply Deming's principles, to try to be Deming.

by Greg Monaco, Ph.D.

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