The Influence of W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

Note: This is Part I in a five-part series on Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge.

In order to achieve equitable outcomes for all students, schools must undergo a transformation on an order of magnitude seldom seen in the history of organizations. 

One such example from history is that of Japanese industry after World War II. This transformation was assisted by a team of American engineers, scientists, and statisticians, but arguably the most instrumental was W. Edwards Deming. Starting in 1950 and in subsequent trips to Japan - 27 trips in all -  Deming taught the Japanese his management philosophy which eventually came to be called the System of Profound Knowledge. This work has widely been cited as a key reason for Japan’s rise as an economic world power on the international stage. In 1960, Japan bestowed upon Dr. Deming its Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class to recognize his contributions to its industrial rebirth and worldwide success.

This work was highlighted in the 1980 documentary “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” at which point many American companies (e.g. Ford, Xerox, Procter & Gamble) hired Deming as a consultant. Deming was 80 by the time the documentary hit the airwaves which is to say he was a virtual unknown in the United States leading up to its release. Upon initially learning of Deming’s work in Japan the executive producer of the film remarked, “Ah, the oldest story in the world. A prophet ignored in his own homeland.”.

The documentary ushered in an era of quality improvement work in the United States from about 1982 to 1992 that eventually made its way to education. However, much continuous improvement work, then and now, is led by people that don’t understand Deming’s philosophy. Without knowledge of this history, and more importantly, without profound knowledge, we won’t be able to harness the full potential of continuous improvement methods in our organizations.

Discovering Deming

When I read a book, I often simultaneously get on my phone or laptop and start searching for ideas, terminology, and people mentioned in the book to learn more. Sometimes it's tracking down more information on one of the footnotes or perhaps looking up a term or concept that I feel bad for not knowing off the top of my head. Between you and me, it's something of a curse, or maybe blessing, depending how you look at it. Either way, I’d probably be embarrassed if the time I spent doing this was somehow shared with the world. If I’m focused on a concept, I have to know the research basis underlying the idea and how strong the foundation is on which the concept is built. If I’m researching a person mentioned in the book, then I have to know when and where they were born, how they grew up, how they were educated, and how they came to prominence. 

A few years ago, I found myself following a trail of information from a book I was reading to learn more about Deming’s theory. I don’t remember the book. Perhaps I was rereading Tony Bryk’s Learning to Improve or Atul Gawande’s Better. It’s possible that I was doing some research for a blog I was writing at the time.  While I don’t remember the exact circumstances, what I do remember was ending up on the System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) page on the Deming Institute website. This was sometime in 2018, and I had been studying the science of improvement for just over two years. Up until this point, the study had mainly focused on the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and more recently the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. I had followed the chain from Carnegie’s work in education to IHI’s work in healthcare, and I knew that both had roots in industry.  Following this path had led me to W. Edwards Deming and the institute website that bears his name. I had seen mentions of his ideas on both the education and healthcare sides of the work, but I didn’t know anything about him. Little did I know at this time the influence that Deming would come to have on my approach to school improvement.

Initial Dissonance

As I sat down at my laptop that Saturday morning and started reading about the SoPK, which was the culmination of Deming’s life’s work, I remember thinking two things. First, who does this guy think he is? I mean who calls their management philosophy the System of Profound Knowledge? What is so profound about his knowledge, and who talks like that in the first place? Despite the initial dissonance with the name of the theory I kept reading.  My second thought as I dug in was that the SoPK is nearly incomprehensible. The page outlined the four components of the theory: (1) Appreciation for a system, (2) Knowledge about variation, (3) Theory of knowledge, and (4) Psychology. At the time, I thought I was shooting about 50% because I felt like I had some grasp of two parts of the philosophy - systems thinking and psychology (my undergraduate degree was in psychology). I would later realize my initial understanding was closer to 0%. 

Either way, the complexity of the theory combined with the strangeness of its name almost ended my study of Deming pretty quickly. For more than two years, I didn’t think about his work or his System of Profound Knowledge. However, I did continue on my journey of learning improvement science and applying its tools and techniques to projects I was leading at United Schools Network. 

But then, something happened in March 2020. I wish I could remember the exact catalyst, but whatever it was, it ignited a desire to devour everything I could find about Deming’s ideas. Something made me go back to the Deming Institute website, and this time something clicked. Not that I had a full understanding of the theory in some type of divine event, but the incomprehensibleness began to melt as I read the overview this time around. I started devouring books, listening to podcasts on the Deming Institute website, and watching old videos of Deming interviews and snippets of his famous four-day seminars. I called people that were interviewed or mentioned in the podcasts. As I listened to interviews and spoke with people that revolutionized their work through the application of Deming’s ideas, I realized that I was not alone in my initial cognitive dissonance. It became so commonplace in these interviews and conversations that I’ve realized that rather than being an exception to my transformation process, it is better characterized as a normal step as people discover his work. 

My Journey

Since rediscovering Deming, I’ve been learning his management philosophy from his writings and from those that have carried on his lessons. Over the last eight months I’ve read a dozen books, listened to more than 50 talks and podcasts, and read numerous articles on Deming’s ideas. While this isn’t about the numbers per se, I included them to show that there has been a real fire lit in me because of the potential I see in the SoPK to help us rethink how we approach school improvement. I consider myself a lifelong learner, but I’ve never consumed academic work at this rate at any point of my career.

Understanding Deming hasn't come quickly as it's taken a good bit of study to even begin to wrap my head around the SoPK. This is mainly because  Deming's theory is so different from the typical Western approach to management. However, more and more I've come to believe that Deming's ideas are spot on to the point that I almost immediately began sharing what I've learned about it with people both internal and external to my organization. As it would happen, much of this sharing occurred through video calls while I was at home because of the coronavirus pandemic. My wife, who overhead snippets of these calls over the summer, once said to me that I say Deming’s name more than our kids’ names!

While I hope this isn’t the case, his ideas are fundamentally changing how I approach my work and how I see the world (not hyperbole!). In The New Economics Deming wrote, 

The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.

Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. The individual, once transformed, will:

Set an example

Be a good listener, but will not compromise

Continually teach other people

Help people to pull away from their current practice and beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a feeling of guilt about the past.

My hope is that I can live up to the lofty ideals Deming set out for those that have been transformed. This introductory piece is the first of a five-part series on how I am using the System of Profound Knowledge as a catalyst to transformational change at United Schools Network.  Ultimately, I’d like to play a small role in ensuring that Deming is no longer a prophet ignored in his own land.

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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools Network, a nonprofit charter-management organization that supports four public charter schools in Columbus. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschoolsnetwork.org.