Required Reading: The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education by W. Edwards Deming
By
DG
on November 12, 2007 at 11:37 am
W. Edwards Deming is well known for advising the Japanese auto industry in the 50’s on how to build better cars. American manufacturers failed to adopt his suggestions and have since fallen behind the Japanese. While the principles he developed were targeted at production, they can be adapted to all sorts of activity.
One area that has clearly failed to learn from Demming’s work is government; specificly the management of government.
Demming wrote “the prevailing system of management must undergo a transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.” This philosophy describes specifically why the American political system is successful. The founders understood that because power corrupts, there must constantly be a group of outsiders showing the public what is going wrong.
Many people look at those who point out what is wrong with government as malcontents. They hear the complaining and they pass it off as people never being satisfied. While this is often a component of dissent, there is generally good reason for the complaints.
When something is going wrong in government, the problem will not be fixed by those in the middle of it. It must be fixed by people without personal agendas in the matter.
While the most clear situation this principle refers to is WSI, we must all remember that people on the inside of any organization are not seeing the forest for the trees. The perspective of outsiders is required to remedy situations where group-think has taken over.
For more on W. Edwards Demming visit http://www.deming.org/.
One area that has clearly failed to learn from Demming’s work is government; specificly the management of government.
Demming wrote “the prevailing system of management must undergo a transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.” This philosophy describes specifically why the American political system is successful. The founders understood that because power corrupts, there must constantly be a group of outsiders showing the public what is going wrong.
Many people look at those who point out what is wrong with government as malcontents. They hear the complaining and they pass it off as people never being satisfied. While this is often a component of dissent, there is generally good reason for the complaints.
When something is going wrong in government, the problem will not be fixed by those in the middle of it. It must be fixed by people without personal agendas in the matter.
While the most clear situation this principle refers to is WSI, we must all remember that people on the inside of any organization are not seeing the forest for the trees. The perspective of outsiders is required to remedy situations where group-think has taken over.
For more on W. Edwards Demming visit http://www.deming.org/.
