In Their Own Words Podcast Por The Deming Institute arte de portada

In Their Own Words

In Their Own Words

De: The Deming Institute
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Our podcasts feature interviews with members of the Deming community, including industry leaders, practitioners, educators, Deming family members, and others who share their stories of transformation and success through innovative management and quality theories of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Podcast episodes prior to 2022 were hosted, produced, and edited by Tripp Babbitt.The W. Edwards Deming Institute Economía Gestión Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo
Episodios
  • A New Lens with Balaji Reddie (Part 6)

    A New Lens with Balaji Reddie (Part 6)
    Jul 27 2026
    What happens when an organization gets so focused on results that it forgets why it exists? Andrew Stotz and Balaji Reddie dig into the first of Deming's 14 Points, constancy of purpose, using stories like Harvard's answer to Deming's challenge to define a business and Indian manufacturers who pivoted to build PPE during the pandemic. This conversation may change how you think about success, profit, and the real aim of a business. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with Balaji Reddie, an educator and trainer in the teachings of Dr. Deming and quality management generally. I'm really excited for today's topic, which is the 14 Points. Take it away, Balaji. 0:00:27.5 Balaji Reddie: Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. So the last time we spoke, we had discussed all the four sciences that Dr. Deming put together. In a nutshell, we said his words, appreciation for a system. That means appreciating that there are no events, there are eventualities, and there is a huge myriad or a huge system of myriad components that create these outcomes. So we need to understand that. We need to appreciate the fact that these are all interconnected, interdependent, these components. Right. And we saw some other attributes that when they interact with each other, the cause and effect are not closely related in time or space. Seemingly disconnected events then turn out to be connected. There exist synergistic relationships. So you can't just straightaway say, "I know." You can say, "From what I understand or what knowledge I have right now about the system, I think." 0:01:34.7 Balaji Reddie: And you always dig deeper. Right. And that gave us the next thing, that the performance of any system, the outcomes are subject to Variation. You will never get the same outcome every single time. It keeps on fluctuating. And then we realize there is a difference between normal and abnormal fluctuations. The typical term that Walter Shewhart said was Variation, and Deming took that forward. He said, "Understand Variation." I would say learn how to think statistically. Right? And statistical thinking is about knowing when to act and when to leave a process alone. Okay. So we said understand the Variation, and you should know when to... There's that normal fluctuation, you would need to work on it continually. But abnormal fluctuation is a little easier to understand, isolate, and take immediate action. So the low-hanging fruit comes from the abnormal fluctuation, what he called as special causes or assignable causes, as Walter Shewhart said. 0:02:41.0 Balaji Reddie: And once you work on them, then your long-term work on the process continues. That never stops because it helps you understand the process much, much better. Right? But there you are faced with the dilemma sometimes. There's so many complications there, and you just need to understand them if you want to know completely what happens in a system. And that's why he said the complete knowledge is never... Is unknown and unknowable. But he said there's a way of doing that, and that's where the Theory of Knowledge came in. We needed to understand that we build upon what we have right now. We start asking questions, and you begin with theories. "I think, I believe." And once you start doing that, you start unraveling the mysteries of the system under study. And last bit here is all this, of course, he was speaking about man-made systems, organizational systems, which all this work is being done by people. 0:03:38.0 Balaji Reddie: And he said that's where the best part comes in. You can never do things all by yourself. You need to cooperate with others. Each one comes with their own theories, and each one has their own system of learning, their own way of thinking. So we need to understand that, whether you are employees inside a company, whether you are people outside the company contributing in the sense of suppliers, or people who are recipients of this in terms of consumers. So everyone, you need to understand people, that they're a part of this entire system. And that's where Psychology comes in. Of course, I used the word empathy. I said understanding them and on. And on a lighter note, I ended by saying that if you really want to sharpen your empathetic skills, you need to either understand your pet or a baby, because these are people who can't express what they want and you just have to have your own theories and then understand them better. 0:04:34.9 Balaji Reddie: But that's what we saw last time. Now we're gonna get to, funnily, what he espoused as his philosophy [chuckle] when he first presented it in the United States in a structured form, right? These were the 14 Points. Now, first of all, the 14 Points are not his philosophy, but they're 14 consequences of his philosophy. You can never really set out to say, "I'm gonna ...
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    43 m
  • A New Lens with Balaji Reddie (Part 5)

    A New Lens with Balaji Reddie (Part 5)
    Jul 20 2026
    "Every time this child was proven wrong, he learned something new." In this episode, Andrew Stotz continues his conversation with Balaji Reddie as they explore two essential elements of Dr. Deming's System of Profound Knowledge: the Theory of Knowledge and Psychology. Through the memorable story of a young boy trying to understand how his father's scooter starts, Balaji illustrates how we build theories, test them through experience, and improve them through learning. The discussion also explores why PDSA begins with theory, why experience alone is not enough, and why understanding how people learn is fundamental to leading improvement. Whether you're new to Deming or deep into his work, this episode offers practical insights into how better questions lead to better knowledge and, ultimately, better management. Are you ready to learn more about the System of Profound Knowledge? Check out DemingNEXT online learning! https://deming.org/learn/demingnext/ TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Balaji Reddie, an educator and trainer in the teachings of Dr. Deming, and quality management generally. The topic for today is: The theory of knowledge and psychology. Take it away. 0:00:29.8 Balaji Reddie: Well, thank you. Good morning, Andrew. And it's great to continue our series. So the last time we met, we had begun with the Profound Knowledge, where we said that Dr. Deming brought together four, seemingly disconnected, sciences. He never invented any single one of them, but he saw the connections, and he created, what you could say is, a bootstrap theory of management, if I may say so, a very all-encompassing view of things happening around you. That's why he had no other word to describe it except profound. Because you see things that you normally would not see. That's what we said the last time. And when he proposed that, all of a sudden, I told you the funny thing was that experts in each of those sciences jumped in. I think they realized that they were caught napping, that they did not see the connections, and they did not see a bare minimum set of competencies that you need to have in order to understand things in their entirety. It was very, very... It was amazing that he actually could put that all together. 0:01:44.3 Balaji Reddie: So we started off with the four sciences, in no order of preference. We said here... His words were appreciation for a system. That means, taking into consideration the fact that everything... Having a holistic view, that what we see is not an event but an eventuality, that there's a huge big system behind it. Whatever we get to see in front of our eyes, we're just getting to see the effect. So appreciating that, that's what he said, for a system, a systemic view. I just used a different word, I said connectedness. And I said that from now on, we say that there are no events, there are only eventualities. Which means when something happens in front of our eyes, we always question... We bring in the concept of time and space; that the origins of this, what I'm seeing in front of my eyes, lie somewhere else and maybe actually in a different time frame. So I need to study deeper in order to understand why I'm seeing this in front of my eyes. And you gave that fantastic example of coffee beans, where you said everything has to happen at the right time. So that was the first one. 0:02:54.1 Balaji Reddie: Second one, was about understanding variation. And I would say, that's statistical thinking. I think around 1998, I saw someone come out with the definition of statistical thinking. And they said that it's a holistic view of looking at a process, that everything in the world, happens in the form of a process, and all processes are subject to variation. And understanding and reducing that variation, is synonymous to increasing quality. Now, I'd just like to make a slight change there. Yes, all processes are subject to variation, but talking about reducing... I think, understanding and managing that variation, would lead to better quality. And his entire insistence was understanding variation. Although, let me tell you this, in Henry Neave's book, he wrote about this, where he said that in one of the weekend chats that they had with Deming, he made a statement that if I had to reduce my message to managers in two words, I would say: reduce variation. And this, I've heard from both Henry Neave and David Kerridge. For those who are unaware of who David Kerridge was, because he passed away, I think, around 2018 or 2019, I can't remember... Or maybe before. I'm forgetting the year. 0:04:32.1 Balaji Reddie: But this was... He was from Aberdeen, Scotland. And people used to say, he's like an unofficial person who could be the successor to Deming. So he wrote a lot of wonderful papers. So David Kerridge, Henry, and I, were...
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    46 m
  • Go Small or Go Home

    Go Small or Go Home
    Jul 13 2026
    What if the best leaders are not the ones with the biggest ideas? In this episode, John Dues argues that the leaders who make the greatest impact are the ones who create the fastest learning cycles. John and Andrew Stotz explore why small tests often outperform large initiatives, how PDSA builds real organizational knowledge, and why improvement is a learning process, not an implementation process. If your organization is launching new initiatives, this conversation offers a different question to ask: What's the smallest test we can run to learn whether this idea actually works? TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is the Fastest Way to Learn What Works. I love that title, John. Take it away. 0:00:30.0 John Dues: Hey Andrew, it's good to be back. Yeah, I was thinking about talking about leadership today, and I was thinking about who are the leaders that we tend to admire? I think the typical person would say these leaders with big, bold ideas. In my world, a superintendent launches this district-wide initiative, or maybe it's a principal has this sweeping school improvement plan that they've put in place. In your world, maybe some CEO unveils this new strategic direction. We think about these leaders, if they're described, they're visionary, decisive, courageous. But I think, as I've done this study, I've become increasingly convinced that we're paying attention to the wrong leaders in a lot of cases... 0:01:31.6 Andrew Stotz: So the right leaders are the ones that have their pen over their right ear. 0:01:36.9 John Dues: Always. That's the mark. That is the mark... 0:01:39.6 Andrew Stotz: I think I see that on you. 0:01:43.9 John Dues: I'm definitely not describing me. I'm just an observer, observer of the world. But I think these leaders make these big promises, but I'm increasingly convinced that the leaders who we should be paying more attention to are the ones that create these fast learning cycles. So in a typical place, a company or something, a school, they're faced with a problem. These leaders don't immediately ask, "How do we scale this? How do we scale this idea?" I think they're turning to a different question, and that's, "What's the smallest test we can run to learn whether this idea actually works?" It's a very different, very different question. And I think it's tough because this is a question that's not gonna make headlines, but I think it's one of the more important questions that a leader can ask... 0:02:49.9 Andrew Stotz: Isn't a great leader supposed to be doing the big things? You're talking about the smallest. 0:02:52.8 John Dues: The big things, right, the large initiatives, that's what gets attention. But I think the larger the initiative, the problem is the longer it takes to learn whether that thing, that idea, is helping or hurting or maybe having no effect at all. And I think what happens is, and what I've seen in schools repeatedly, I'm sure it's probably the same in the private sector, is oftentimes by the time the evidence actually arrives, if it ever does, so much time, money, and goodwill has been spent that it almost doesn't matter whether the idea itself was successful. All this cost was sunk into training people, all these new expectations have been established, and then we almost become more invested in proving the initiative was the right decision. And then once that happens, it's almost impossible to go about learning if it's actually having the effect that we intended to. And I think a lot of this has to do with many improvement efforts that I see. They start with a solution. They're sort of starting with not a clear definition of the problem, but this idea that they think is gonna have an impact, whatever that is. It could be a new curriculum in a school, an attendance campaign because attendance has been a big thing lately, some type of new evaluation process that they're gonna use with teachers or workers, whatever. But the point is that the assumption is that the solution's known at the beginning and that success really just depends on implementation. But I think the problem I see is that no one stops and thinks, "What if this solution actually doesn't work in our system?" We copy these ideas, we've seen this thing, whatever it is, work somewhere else, and we almost don't even consider whether the context matters. And it's maybe the most important thing to consider. 0:05:11.7 Andrew Stotz: I think about Deming, Dr. Deming, saying, "How would they know?" 0:05:16.0 John Dues: How would they know? Yeah. And I think, again, so much gets sunk into the initiative, all that training, all the money, all the resources, whatever. At a ...
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    23 m
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Maybe I got something out of it (more my own thoughts triggered by their dialogue than their content itself-- hint: emphasize the Run Chart!), so I won't say it's valueless, but it's certainly very light for anyone, even beginners.

On the plus side, at least it's short! Less than an hour, much less if you listen at 1.4 X speed or so.

I'd comment more but there's very little substance to comment on, Deming-related or otherwise.

At the very end they say to research Deming and quality, etc., more. Yeah, no kidding! In fact, that's what you should do first, before or even instead of listening to this half hour of little to nothing.

Very, very light on substance

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