• Dr. Deming’s “Role of a Manager of People” by Mark Graban – quoting Dr. Deming “A manager understands and conveys to his people the meaning of a system. He explains the aim of the system. He teaches his people to understand how the work of the group supports these aims.”
• Does Standard Work Destroy Creativity? by Janet Dozier – “When standard work is consistently and uniformly adhered to, it drives continuous improvement by exposing problems within the process. Making problems easier to see inspires planned experimentation to discover better ways to perform the work. Standards are the foundation for continuous improvement.”


Mural, Mith Samlanh Education Center, Phnon Phen, Cambodia

• How to Be Startup CEO by Ryan Allis – “In my experience the three most important components of the Start-up CEO’s role are:
  1. Creating a product that solves a real customer need (and convincing customers to pay for it).
  2. Making sure your users and customers have an extremely positive emotional experience with your product.
  3. Recruiting a great team to build your product.”
• Distorting the System, Distorting the Data or Improving the System by John Hunter – “It is good to get in the habit of considering if the measured improvements are truly an indication of an improved system or merely the result of distorting the system or the data.”
• Rapid PDCA by Mark Rosenthal – “All of this happened over less than a couple of hours, and it was in production that afternoon with immediate results. A far cry from the traditional tooling and jig design process.”
• Estimates in Software Development. New Frontiers. by Michael Dubakov – “I think we should embrace estimate distribution and invent new ways to model and use it.”
• J.C. Penney Spent $170 Million to Install Johnson Team by Matt Townsend – “Ron Johnson’s tenure at J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) will long be associated with a 25 percent sales plunge. Lost amid the criticism since his departure last month is the $170 million it cost to install Johnson and his top three executives.” [Massively overpaying executives and the hero worship, disrespect for people, foolish risk taking, HiPPO thinking instead of evidence based thinking and rest that goes along with management that engages in such a poor management practice continues to do great harm to our organizations - John]
• Going to Gemba vs. Statistical Analysis by Ron Pereira – “I was successful at my job because I worked at gemba and also knew how to do more advanced statistically based analysis.I could have stood at gemba all day long and watched our processes spin out of control without a clue as to how to help…

  But, because I did both – lived and worked at gemba and leveraged statistical analysis – I was able to do very well.”

• The Myth Of Multitasking – “Clifford Nass, a psychology professor at Stanford University, says today’s nonstop multitasking actually wastes more time than it saves—and he says there’s evidence it may be killing our concentration and creativity too.”
• Lean Blog Podcast with John Hunter, Mark Graban interviewed me about the ideas in my book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

• Madison, Wisconsin: William G. Hunter, George Box, Brian Joiner, Peter Scholtes, Joe Sensenbrener (Quality Comes to City Hall), Statistics for Experimenters, Out of the Crisis, Doing More with Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin
• My online efforts: Curious Cat Management Guide, Curious Cat Management Blog (where you are now), Curious Cat Investing Blog, Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog, Living in Malaysia, more blogs, Public Sector Continuous Improvement
• My book, Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability
• Long Term Thinking with Respect for People – incentive schemes to get people “motivated” backfire
• What Does Respect for People Actually Mean?, Respect People by Creating a Climate for Joy in Work, the difference between respect and disrespect is not avoiding avoiding criticism
• confirmation bias
• The W. Edwards Deming Institute – blog

John Hunter at Prambanan Temple, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

More podcasts with me: Software Process and Measurement Podcast With John Hunter – Business 901 Podcast: Deming’s Management Ideas Today – Process Excellence Network Podcast with John Hunter

• Customer Service Andon Cord: Jeff Bezos and Customer Experience by Pete Abilla – “Lean principles have taken such a hold on Amazon and on Jeff Bezos that job titles now contain terms often used in Lean Manufacturing. For example, Jeff Bezos’ comment on ‘Customer Service Andon’ – well, it’s also a current job opening at Amazon…”
• The Neuroscience of Deming by John Hunter – From the video (embedded below), JW Wilson: “Fast thinking is what you use when you are running from the bear, slow thinking is the kind of thinking you use when you want to change the world… We think we only have time to run from the bear; the consequences are devastating… [slow thinking is required for] making adaption to unsuccessful attempts”
• Procter & Gamble: Basis Point Wise, Percentage Point Foolish by Bill Conerly – “If one of the parties in a transaction has to borrow, it should be the party with the cheaper debt cost.” [This is another example of stovepipe thinking and optimizing part of the system at great expense to the whole. People continue to fail to apply decades olds knowledge of the benefits of focusing on system improvement instead of optimizing components within the system. In addition to systems thinking failures it is an example of a focus on financial metrics themselves which often leads to silly actions due to not appreciating the proxy nature of measures. - John].
• Are you providing leadership or support? by Dan Markovitz – Leadership means hacking through the jungle with a machete, clearing a path for front-line staff, supervisors, and managers to follow.
• Using Binary Logistic Regression to Investigate High Employee Turnover by Carly Barry – “The output from his Minitab analysis yielded a regression equation Parks could use to predict the probability of employees quitting based on the number of miles that made up their commute to work. He used the equation to analyze distances up to30 miles, and found that commuting distance had little impact on the probability of an employee quitting until the 12 mile mark.”
• Hidden Benefits of Job Instruction by Bryan Lund – “If you write [Job Breakdown Sheets] JBS with others, you are modeling one of the high quality leadership behavior traits: mentoring and teaching. And doing this with others increases each person’s emotional intelligence, working with others, resolving differences, testing assumptions, organizing actions, reflecting on results. We need tools to help us do what is required of us for the benefit of our team. A JBS is another deliberate method we can use to maximize the potential of our people.”
• The Problem with A3 Reports by Ron Pereira – “the power isn’t found in the A3… instead the power comes from the collaborative efforts of the team that happens to be documenting their improvement journey using an A3.”
• Innovation Demands Discipline, Patience by Matt May – “All change demands learning. Meaningful change—aka innovation—demands profound learning. Learning and innovation go hand in hand, but learning comes first. Again, that takes time. There are no overnight sensations—great careers and great companies are built painstakingly over time.”
• The Role of the Sensei in Learning by Gregg Stocker – “The role of a specialist, or sensei, is to guide people in the new way of thinking. The more the experts do things – change systems, redesign processes, etc. – or tell people what they need to be doing, the more they interfere with learning and reduce the chances of sustaining the change.”
• Agile Life: Personal Kanban Revisited by Christian Fogel – “There is nothing new here, the method is the same as the one I used at work, but I’d still like to point out two things… Now, with this extraordinarily simple method, I usually get 80-90% of the tasks done, which is a vast improvement… The second thing is, again, transparency…”
• 100 percent of managers fail by Wally Bock – “You and your team members will fail. Prevent as many as you can and minimize the impact of the rest. Learn from every failure.”
• The Art of Discovery by John Hunter – George Box (in video presentation): “I think the quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of the of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the process, the product and the customer.”

Page 315 of Out of the Crisis by Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

Dr. Deming’s quote from the introduction to the Team Handbook

I think, in looking at the total of Deming’s work, that the point he is trying to make is that looking to blame people is not a good strategy for improvement. The impact due solely to a person’s direct action (not including their interaction with the system and with others) is small in comparison to that of the system within which they work. So, Deming (and I) want people to focus on improving the system; which will achieve better results than searching for what people did wrong.

What did Deming want people to take from his statements?

Did he want us just to accept bad results? No. He was not saying it is the system there is nothing we can do just accept that this is how things are. He wanted us to focus on the most effective improvement strategies. He saw huge waste directed at blaming people for bad results. He wanted to focus the improvement on the area with the greatest possibility for results.

Did he want to say people are just cogs in the machine? No. Read or listen to most anything he said at any significant length (a full chapter of this book, a full article he wrote on management, an hour from one of his videos) and it is hard to maintain such a thought.

Pinetree Trail, Frasers Hill, Malaysia by John Hunter

Did he believe that people were not important? No. He was trying to direct the focus of improvement efforts to look not at the fault with one person but to look at the system. I believe strongly he was correct. If you blame a person as the root cause of a problem, my first, second and third reactions are why? why? why? It is possible the person is to blame and there is no benefit to exploring system improvement instead of settling for blaming the person. But that is rare.

I have written about the importance of developing people to build the capability of the organization. My father wrote about it previously, “American organizations could compete much better at home and abroad if they would learn to tap the potential information inherent in all processes and the creativity inherent in all employees.”

I wrote about the importance of the ideas behind Deming’s quotes here, back in 2006 – Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

There are some who seem to take Deming’s intent (which I believe it was an admonition against so many management system blaming people for things that were out of the individuals control) as a lack of concern or respect for individuals (or respect for their talents, efforts, abilities or contributions). Looking at this one quote I can see how someone can make that mistake. But looking at all of Deming’s work it is obvious he believed deeply in training and eduction of employees. He believed deeply in removing the barriers that rob people of joy in work. He, as much as any other leading management thinker of the 20th century promoted the importance of treating employees as deserving respect. Failing to consider his whole management system leads to misunderstanding the meaning behind quotes, it seems to me.

I don’t think Deming’s choice to quote the figures was the best decision. I think he was trying to give additional weight to saying something like the system accounts for much of the results. Using the figures leads to the next question; which is what the operational definitions used to collect this data are. Which can’t be answered because the figures are not based on collected data. But that is my opinion, Deming did use the figures.

Related: Appreciation for a system – Firing Workers Isn’t Fixing Problems – Everyone Deserves the Opportunity for Joy in Work – Create a System That Lets People Take Pride in Their Work – People: Team Members or Costs

Here are some thoughts on this topic I shared in a comment on this blog previously:

I agree with the idea that the 94% figure is questionable to begin with, and may be even more questionable in knowledge work. I do still think that most organization should shift to looking for solutions based on the entire system and not looking at individual people and special causes (even not just people).

So I agree that the 94% figure is not of much value. Saying it is 94% or 80% really make no difference. Even saying it is 50% doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t actually have any impact on what action you are suppose to take. For an improvement effort a special cause or common cause strategy will be used (I believe far more often, a common cause strategy will be most useful in knowledge work organization). And in general special cause issues are of lower scope and have a lower impact (therefore just counting the number of occurrence probably underestimates the importance of system issues (versus special causes). But, in any event I certainly can see reason to question 94%.

I believe Deming focused on in largely as a counter to the continual barrage of explanations that it is “Joe” and “Hank” that are the problem. Dr. Deming saw over and over you replace “Joe” and “Hank” and nothing changes. The system continues to produce the same results.

Now you have to be careful – often we can be mislead by “regression to the mean” into thinking a system that stays the same got better after some change because we take action when these odd events happen and the system would have “regressed to the mean” without a change or a random change too.

I do believe certain people (leaders, technical masters, insightful engineers) have an inordinate ability to take heroic action to overcome systems (which is another argument for reducing the 94% figure). They can both work miracles and be extremely difficult to replace and maintain success. The best possible result, in my opinion, is to capture the remarkable benefits of these exceptional people and create systems that are robust. This means creating processes to track and manage success, use check sheets, monitor in-process measure, use kanban and agile methods (to have system that are much more robust)…

While I accept the arguments that knowledge work is different (and thus the 94% figure shouldn’t be considered) I have found I don’t share a frequent desire of those making that case. Which largely amounts to “let heroic knowledge workers” be free to creatively build success without all your controls making them into robots that can’t find inspiration for their gifts to flourish.

A recent blog post touched on some on a similar idea, How much is your success dependent on those around you?

If you actually read all the way to the end of this post you may be interested in my book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability.

Quotes by George Box in the video:

“I think of statistical methods as the use of science to make sense of numbers”

“The scientific method is how we increase the rate at which we find things out.”

“I think the quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of the of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the process, the product and the customer.”

“It really amounts to this, if you know more about what it is you are doing then you can do it better and you can do it cheaper.”

“We are talking about involving the whole workforce in the use of the scientific method and retraining our engineers and scientists in a more efficient way to run experiments.”

“Tapping into resources:

1. Every operating system generates information that can be used to improve it.
2. Everyone has creativity.
3. Designed experiments can greatly increase the efficiency of experimentation.

An informed observer and directed experimentation are necessary for the scientific method to be applied. He notes that the control chart is used to notify an informed observer to explain what is special about the conditions when a result falls outside the control limits. When the chart indicates a special cause is likely present (something not part of the normal system) an informed observer should think about what special cause could lead to the result that was measured. And it is important this is done quickly as the ability of the knowledgable observer to determine what is special is much greater the closer in time to the result was created.

The video was posted by Wiley (with the permission of George’s family), Wiley is the publisher of George’s recent autobiography, An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box, and many of his other books.

Related: Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity – Statistics for Experimenters (book on directed experimentation by Box, Hunter and Hunter) – Highlights from 2009 George Box Speech – Introductory Videos on Using Design of Experiments to Improve Results (with Stu Hunter)

• How much is your success dependent on those around you? by Eric Barker – “You’d think that doing thousands of heart surgeries would make you better at them. Not necessarily. Surgeons only got better at their home hospital: the one where they knew the team best and developed strong working relationships…. We often take our context and those around us for granted. What is it about those around you that’s making you good at what you do?
• A Lesson on Leadership from Marrakech by Kevin Meyer – “Five times a day Muslims are reminded of their faith and are asked to reflect on it. And practicing Muslims will, whenever possible… Take the time to discover and define the true purpose of the organization. Translate that into a long-term strategy with short- and intermediate-term objectives. Then communicate and reinforce that purpose, strategy, and thinking… over and over and over.

  At least five times a day.”



Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia, by John Hunter. See photos from my walk on Bishops Trail in Fraser’s Hill.

• The Reason Health Care Is So Expensive: Insurance Companies by Jeffrey Pfeffer – “Unless and until we as a society pay attention to the enormous costs and the time wasted by the current administrative arrangements, we will continue to pay much too much for health care.” [the administrative system used by insurance companies is a big part of the problem but there are plenty more that needs to be improved with the health care system - John.]
• This Executive Compensation Issue by Bill Waddell – What all of this means in terms of lean is that a holistic, respectful approach is an essential element of the lean philosophy – respect for people, including all of the stakeholders in the business. It is hard for me to see how anyone with the focus and priorities it takes to be in the cross hairs of the critics of CEO compensation can be such a lean leader.” [Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style - John Hunter]
• Hallmark Building Supplies: Applying Deming as a Business Strategy by John Hunter – “When thinking systemically companies learn to see the system as larger than just their organization. Hallmark Building Supplies wanted to improve the larger system by helping their customers and suppliers learn about Deming’s ideas and apply those ideas themselves.”
• 5 questions you should ask before holding a meeting by Bernd Geropp – “What is the purpose? Be specific and write it down. What do you want to achieve with the meeting? Is the purpose only to provide information? Are you planning to discuss certain topics and to develop ideas? What decisions should be taken in the meeting? A meeting has always to be result oriented. Be crystal clear about the desired outcome!”
• Scrum Commitments, Little’s Law, and Variability by Alexei Zheglov – “Another option is to reduce the average story size, which has a doubly beneficial side effect because it tends to reduce the harmful component of variation as well. As you can see in the made-up example (average 2, sigma 0.5), committing to stories even as small as half the sprint length assumes unrealistically low variability.”
• Six Suggestions to Allay People’s Fear of Change by Tim McMahon – “Generally people will accept change when they see a personal benefit. Employees who are involved in determining the benefits of change are less likely to resist it. Assist employees in identifying what the change will do for them.”

photo of (from right to left) Peter Scholtes, John Hunter and George Box in Madison, Wisconsin at the 2008 Deming Conference

• George Box (1919 to 2013) by John Hunter – George Box was a very kind, smart, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He was also one of the most important statisticians of the last 100 years. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate…
• George Box: A remembrance by Bradley Jones – “His greatest contribution to my life was the wonderful book, Statistics for Experimenters, which he wrote with William G. Hunter and Stu Hunter and published in 1978, the same year he served as president of the American Statistical Association. I remember the excitement I felt on reading the description of how the attainment of knowledge is an endless spiral proceeding alternately from deduction to induction and back. Even now, I recall with pleasure the discussion of the randomization distribution early in the book.”
• Getting Started with Factorial Design of Experiments by Eston Martz – “When I talk to quality professionals about how they use statistics, one tool they mention again and again is design of experiments, or DOE. I’d never even heard the term before I started getting involved in quality improvement efforts, but now that I’ve learned how it works, I wonder why I didn’t learn about it sooner. If you need to find out how several factors are affecting a process outcome, DOE is the way to go.”
• Brian Joiner Podcast on Management, Sustainability and the Health Care System – Recently Brian has shifted his focus to the health care system (while maintaining a focus on quality principles and sustainability). “Our health care system is an economic tsunami that is about to overwhelm us if we don’t do something very significant, very soon.”
• Lean in Product Development by Dan Jones – “deepen your understanding of how these new products will help consumers create value in their lives. Reach beyond traditional market research to understand the circumstances in which consumers use your products, not just how they buy them, and processes they go through to obtain them and how these are changing over time.”
• Is Improving Police an Impossible Task? by David Couper – “select the best and brightest to serve, listen to what they and the community have to say, train and lead them collaboratively and respectfully, continuously improve all systems of work, honestly survey “citizen-customers,” evaluate progress, and work to sustain the effort. In less than a decade, the Madison department was transformed into an organization which became more diverse, competent, restrained, and community-oriented. It remains so today.”
• What if what we know is wrong? by Skip Walter – “The challenge with leading a Reflective Practitioner life is taking the time to revisit and revise one’s own theory of our professional discipline(s)…

George died today, he was born in 1919. He recently completed An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box which is an excellent book that captures his great ability to tell stories. It is a wonderful read for anyone interested in statistics and management improvement or just great stories of an interesting life.

George Box by Brent Nicastro.

George Box was a fantastic statistician. I am not the person to judge, but from what I have read one of the handful of most important applied statisticians of the last 100 years. His contributions are enormous. Several well know statistical methods are known by his name, including:

• Box–Jenkins model
• Box–Cox transformations
• and Box–Behnken designs

George was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. He also served as president of the American Statistics Association in 1978. George is also an honorary member of ASQ.

George was a very kind, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate. While his writing was great, seeing him in person added so much more. Growing up I was able to enjoy his stories often, at our house or his. The last time I was in Madison, my brother and I visited with him and again listened to his marvelous stories about Carl Pearson, Ronald Fisher and so much more. He was one those special people that made you very happy whenever you were near him.

George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill Hunter (my father) wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. I am biased but I think this is acknowledged as one of (if not the) most important books on design of experiments.

George also wrote other classic books: Time series analysis: Forecasting and control (1979, with Gwilym Jenkins) and Bayesian inference in statistical analysis. (1973, with George C. Tiao).

George Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. The Center develops, advances and communicates quality improvement methods and ideas.

The Box Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Industrial Statistics recognizes development and the application of statistical methods in European business and industry in his honor.

“All models are wrong but some are useful” is likely his most famous quote. More quotes By George Box

A few selected articles and reports by George Box

• William G. Hunter: An Innovator and Catalyst for Quality Improvement
• The Scientific Context of Quality Improvement
• Statistics for Discovery
• Statistics as a Catalyst to Learning by Scientific Method
• Improving Almost Anything – collection of great articles and reports

Related: Peter Scholtes – Soren Bisgaard – It is not about proving a theorem it is about being curious about things – Box on Quality

Related: Bradley Jones posted his thoughts on George – remembrance by Professor Bovas Abraham – En Memoria de George E. P. Box, Doctor Honoris Causa por la UC3M by Daniel Peña – George Box, (1919-2013): a wit, a kind man and a statistician by Julian Champkin, Significance Magazine – UK Royal Statistical Society – Statistics for the Rest of Us

If you want to honor the memory of George, contributions can be made to UW Foundation-George Box Endowment Fund (for the support of statistics graduate students) or Agrace HospiceCare.

And a last message from George, “Experiment! Make it your motto day and night. Experiment, And it will lead you to the light …Be Curious, …Get Furious… Experiment, And you’ll see!” Experiment by Cole Porter

Full obituary

George E. P. “Pel” Box, age 93, died on Thursday, March 28, 2013, at home.

He was much loved and will be missed by many. A celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 5, 2013, at First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, Madison.

Pel was born in Gravesend, Kent, England in 1919. Born into modest means, both he and his brother, Jack earned scholarships in order to attend the more elite public school in Kent. Pel began his scientific life as a chemist, publishing his first paper at the age of 19 on the activated sludge process to produce clean effluent. Understanding the dangers of fascism, he abandoned his education and enlisted in the army on the very first day he was eligible. During his six years in the army he eventually was sent to Porton Down Experimental Station to study the potential impact of poison gases. George realized that only a statistician could get reliable results from experiments so he taught himself statistics and a career was born.

After the war, George worked at Imperial Chemical Industries for eight years, spending 1953, however, at North Carolina State where he met some of the pre-eminent statisticians of the day. After working again in England for a few years, he left ICI and went to Princeton University in 1956 to direct a statistical research group. George came to Madison in 1959 establish the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Statistics in 1960 and retired as an emeritus professor in 1992, though he continued to contribute research papers and write books until his death. George co-founded the UW Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement with William “Bill” Hunter in 1985. He wrote and co-authored major statistical books on evolutionary operation, times-series, Bayesian analysis, the design of experiments, statistical control, and quality improvement. George loved his students and was proud all their contributions. His last book, a memoir called, An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of G.E.P. Box, is soon to be published by Wiley.

George received many honors, including being elected Vilas Research Professor of Statistics at the UW Madison in 1980, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1985. George is remembered for his long-running Monday Night Beer and Statistics sessions, held at his house and open to all campus researchers and students. He provided analysis and suggestions, and many students later said that they learned more from these sessions than from any classroom or textbook. Pel had encyclopedic knowledge of song lyrics and almost every poem or verse he had every heard. His favorite book, however, was Alice in Wonderland. We also remember his skits and songs such as “There’s No Theorem Like Bayes’ Theorem.” We treasure him for his wit, modesty, kindness and warmth; his love of family and friends.

He is survived by his wife, Claire Quist Box; his former wife, Joan Gunhild Box; their daughter, Helen Elizabeth Box (Tom Murtha) and children, Isaac and Andy of Oak Park, IL; son, Harry Christopher Box (Stacey) and children, Henry and Eliza of Cummington, Mass.; son, Simon (Wendy) and children, Mark, Emma, and great-granddaughter, Olivia. He is also survived by the loving family of his late brother, Jack; Michael (Angela) and children, Sarah and Timothy; Roger (Jean); Margaret (Kevin) and son, James; and Dana (John) and children, Katie and Charlie.

A special thanks to Agrace HospiceCare in Madison for their steadfast and kind support. Heartfelt thanks for the loving care provided by Kolleen Bakkum and 3 year old Lincoln and deep gratitude to Gary (Frankie) Johnson for his many years of friendship and support. George was buried on April 2, 2013, at the Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability in the Natural Path Sanctuary.

If you want to honor the memory of George, contributions could be made to UW Foundation-George Box Endowment Fund (for the support of graduate students) US Bank Lock Box 78807, Milwaukee, WI 53278; Agrace HospiceCare, 5395 E. Cheryl Parkway Madison, WI 53711.

And a last message from George, “Experiment! Make it your motto day and night. Experiment, And it will lead you to the light …Be Curious, …Get Furious… Experiment, And you’ll see!” Cole Porter

The most surprising example of this practice that I recall is the Madison, Wisconsin police department surveying those they arrested to get customer feedback. It is obvious that such “customers” are going to be biased. Still the police department was able to get actionable information by seeking the voice of the customer.

Unrelated photo from Singapore Botanical Garden by John Hunter.

Certain of the police department’s aims are not going to match well with those they arrest (most obviously those arrested wish the police department didn’t arrest them). The police department sought the voice of the customer from all those they interacted with (which included those they arrested, but also included those reporting crimes, victims, relatives of those they arrested etc.).

The aim of the police department is not to arrest people. Doing so is necessary but doing so is most similar in the management context to catching an error to remove that bad result. It is better to improve processes so bad results are avoided. How the police interact with the public can improve the process to help steer people’s actions away from those that will require arrests.

The interaction police officers have with the public is a critical gemba for meeting the police department’s aim. Reducing crime and encouraging a peaceful society is aided by knowing the conditions of that gemba and knowing how attempts to improve are being felt at the gemba.

All customer feedback includes bias and personal preferences and potentially desires that are contrary to the aims for the organization (wanting services for free, for example). Understanding this and how important understanding customer/user feedback on the gemba is, it really shouldn’t be surprising that the police would want that data. But I think it may well be that process thinking, evidence based management and such ideas are still not widely practiced as so the Madison police department’s actions are still surprising to many.

Quality Leadership: The First Step Towards Quality Policing by David Couper and Sabine Lobitz

This article, from 1987, illustrates the respect for people principle was alive and being practiced 25 years ago; most organizations need to do a great deal more work on applying practices that show respect for people.

Related: Quality Improvement and Government: Ten Hard Lessons From the Madison Experience by David C. Couper, Chief of Police, City of Madison, Wisconsin – SWAT Raids, Failure to Apply System Thinking in Law Enforcement – Measuring What Matters: Developing Measures of What the Police Do – The Public Sector and W. Edwards Deming – Doing More with Less in the Public Sector – A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin

Wonderful poster, by Grant Snider, on the question: what is genius.

Related: Comic About Programers – You Have to Find What You Love To Do – Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation – Interruptions Can Severely Damage Performance

• The Three Rules for Rules by Jon Miller – “If rules aren’t being followed, there is a reason. Proceed to the next rule [Rules must be frequently improved.] and rewrite an improved rule.”
• Those Disposable People by Kevin Meyer – “Believing that employees are purely a cost, not understanding that just because the value of employees is not explicitly stated on a P&L and balance sheet doesn’t mean that there is no offsetting value to the “cost,” is a faiure of management.”
• Why ThoughtWorks Eliminated Sales Commissions by John Hunter – “This is another instance of a technology company providing a well reasoned explanation for why they are better off without sales commissions.”
• Dealing With Complexity in Leadership by Linda Fisher Thornton – “The ability to think through complex problems clearly is an asset to individual leaders and to the organizations they serve. We need to find ways to help leaders develop this ability, and to do that, it helps to understand what it is that leaders with a high degree of thinking complexity do.”
• When it Comes to Improvement Sweat the Small Stuff by Tim McMahon – “A key component of continuous improvement is to show progress. It’s not about miracles or heroic solutions or solving massive problems overnight. It’s about building momentum. It’s showing your employees that you’re headed in the right direction. It’s making visible changes…”
• How to Survive a Sudden Promotion Into Leadership by Art Petty – “Create Risk-Free Opportunities for the Boss to Coach. Most managers have less than a clear idea how to support their first-time leaders. Just because his proactive coaching skills are lacking, you can deftly turn the tables by asking the right questions.”
• Cash is King by Bill Waddell – “The rate of inventory reduction – inventory turnover – is still, and always has been, the single best measure of manufacturing excellence. Although not perfect it is the single best way to assess the rate at which a company is pursuing Taiichi Ohno’s description of the Toyota Production System – ‘All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the non-value added wastes’.”
• What Does Respect for People Actually Mean? by John Hunter – “Respect for people requires managers to use judgement and provide enough coaching while not micro-managing. It requires giving employees room to grow while not using that as an excuse to just put them in situations beyond their ability to succeed. It requires a manager to challenge employees to improve and grow while supporting them and helping them when appropriate. Managing with respect requires balance and iteration. Managing with respect for people is “high-touch”; managers need to be in the gemba and know all the capabilities and strengths (and weaknesses) of their team.”

At the simplest level respect for people requires systems that are designed with people in mind – systems are not designed as though robots were doing what people did. Then those systems also must be built in a way that respects the inherent value of people.

Construction site in Mongolia in the 1980′s, photo by Bill Hunter.

And the idea builds beyond that and grows into an understanding that in order for human systems to be most effective they must engage people. There are significant limits to how effective systems with people can be if you act as though people are just robots to implement the instructions given by some boss. Respect for people moves from being about just the inherent value of people themselves to a principle to allow organizations to be most effective.

Within these principles are all sorts of shades of grey where the principles shed light on ideas to consider but it becomes challenging to know what the specific situation calls for.

Things also get complicated with the way English works. There is another aspect to respect that has to do with having confidence in someone’s ability or maturity.

You don’t show more “respect for people” by overestimating them. If someone does not have the statistical skills to do a task it isn’t a failure of “respect for people” to acknowledge that.

I find myself making decisions on how to treat people differently based on what can be seen as different “respect” (in the respect = confidence in their capabilities and their self-confidence). With some people I can simple say, no you are wrong in this case it is best to do x, y, z. I find this is what I can do with those I have the most of the “respect” for their emotional intelligence.

Some people have a tendency to take things personally instead of simply understanding we are debating an idea. I have less “respect” (in the confidence in their ability sense) for those people but as I believe in the principle of “respect for people” I must factor in their feelings, desires and capabilities and interact with them based on how they will take things. I personally find it much easier if statements, opinions, proposals people disagree with can just be debated without people taking expressing a contrary opinion as a sign of disrespect.

Some people will also take requests for data or evidence to support a claim as “dis-respect.” I find this to be a faulty view.

I think there is often a misunderstanding by some that think “respect for people” means not making anyone uncomfortable, which is a flawed view, in my opinion. They sometimes view being challenged as not “respecting their view.” This often can disrespect the majority of people by allowing those that are most aggressive about expressing displeasure with being challenged to improve (to grow and learn, to practice evidence based management, to follow standard procedures, to coach other employees more effectively…) being allowed to continue without improving. This results in everyone else having to cope with their stubbornness. This disrespects most people in order to avoid confronting one person. That is not practicing respect for people.

Related: Respect for Everyone – Toyota, Respect for People (or “Humanity”) and Lean – Long Term Thinking with Respect for People – Respect People by Creating a Climate for Joy in Work

De Style by Kerry James Marshall. Photo by John Hunter at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Another incorrect way to look at respect for people is to think that means we shouldn’t place limits on people. It is not disrespectful to me to tell me I cannot perform surgery. I don’t have the necessary skills. That is an obvious extreme. But it is perfectly appropriate anytime an employee doesn’t have the necessary skill or experience to prevent them from taking on some responsibilities.

A good management system will work with employees to provide them opportunities to gain knowledge, skills and experience that will allow them to take on additional responsibilities. But it is perfectly wise to have limits on people.

A similar mistake is made when manager “trust” my employees to figure it out. It is good not to micro-manage. It is bad to throw employees into situations they are not adequately prepared for and say that it is “respect” for their abilities that prevents you from helping.

Respect for people requires managers to use judgement and provide enough coaching while not micro-managing. It requires giving employees room to grow while not using that as an excuse to just put them in situations beyond their ability to succeed. It requires a manager to challenge employees to improve and grow while supporting them and helping them when appropriate. Managing with respect requires balance and iteration. Managing with respect for people is “high-touch”; managers need to be in the gemba and know all the capabilities and strengths (and weaknesses) of their team. The span of control (number of employees they are responsible for) is normally much lower in a organization concerned with respect for people.