Ron Moen and Cliff Norman of Associates in Process Improvement (API) - "I Make No Apologies for Learning"

Ron Moen and Cliff Norman, of Associates in Process Improvement (API), discuss their similar experiences where first introduced to Dr. Deming, their paper "Evolution of Deming's System of Profound Knowledge" and finally the "journey of learning" through the lens of SoPK, that Dr. Deming left the world.

Ron and Cliff start with an introduction on their first meeting with Dr. Deming; how he challenged what they knew and had learned and dramatically changed their thinking and lives going forward.

The main focus of the podcast summarizes the paper Cliff and Ron will publish next year about the evolution of The Deming System of Profound Knowledge, from it's beginnings when Dr. Deming was introduced to Shewhart in 1927 until his death in 1993. Listen as they walk us through Deming's own learning, starting with SQC (Statistical Quality Control) to SQC for Management (which he taught to the Japanese) through the tremendous growth in the 1980's after the NBC White Paper "If Japan Can...Why Can't We?" Deming's learning continued through multiple versions of the 14 points, Seven Deadly Diseases and the four elements of Profound Knowledge. Deming's work culminated with his greatest contribution, the theory and interaction between the four elements, which became The Deming System of Profound Knowledge.

The last portion of the Podcast focuses on the journey of learning. Dr Deming, said, "I make no apologies for learning" as his message changed and evolved throughout his life. The teachings continue to impact Ron and Cliff in their lives and work and this research provides fascinating insight into Dr. Deming's personal journey of learning. 

Transcript

[00:00:15] This episode, Ron Moen and Cliff Norman discuss the evolution of Dr. Deming's 14 points system of profound knowledge and his learning.

 

[00:00:28] Hi, I'm Tripp Babbitt, host of the Deming Institute podcast. Our guests today are Ron Moen and Cliff Norman of Associates and Process Improvement. Welcome, gentlemen.

 

[00:00:40] Hello.

 

[00:00:42] Can you share a little bit about API and what you do?

 

[00:00:47] Ok, I'll start. This is Ron, I started in nineteen eighty five, three of us, Tom Nolan and like all those myself, we worked together and Department of Agriculture. So we left USDA and started our organization. We were doing a lot of work with academic seminars. So we started and then we we had three more members join in 1987 and 88.

 

[00:01:12] That would be with Norman, who on the call with us today, and Kevin Nolan and Jerry Langley. And we've basically been together now for nearly 30 years. So we just had a little celebration for 30 years.

 

[00:01:30] So congratulations, really.

 

[00:01:33] Any comments about the.

 

[00:01:35] I just think the is sort of interesting. We don't really exist as a business trip. We exist literally as a learning organization. My wife, Jane, when we're asked by clients, can give an example of a learning organization. She always gives API because we exist to do research and writing together and as improvement advisors and consultants if we run out of knowledge without out of work. And so it's been an organization that exists to cooperate in learning. A great example of a learning organization.

 

[00:02:08] Ok, great, great. I appreciate it. So how did you both come across the Deming philosophy, Ron? I'm as I mentioned earlier in a conversation, I'm familiar with you from The Reckoning and a number of the books even Out of the Crisis. You're mentioning there are a couple of times. So starting with you, how did this all develop with you and Dr. Deming?

 

[00:02:33] For me, it was in graduate school at the University of Missouri, I went to a American Statistical Association meeting in Montreal in 1971.

 

[00:02:44] Deming was there and I was in the audience and he was probably one hundred statisticians and he made every one of them mad because his topic was on athletic studies. And this is really a very important message that is carried throughout his lifetime. This negative versus athletic and statisticians never really got it. They thought that he was doing away with their profession and their theory is correct for a number of problems. That's not correct for Analytica. So I just spent four years in graduate school learning the theory behind a number of studies.

 

[00:03:20] My advisor was in Montreal and he said, well, how do you like working in the real world? I said, where is the population?

 

[00:03:28] There's no population. The world's very dynamic and enumerated problems are not appropriate. Just six words for negative. But the problem is that we work on our analytic. And so that was kind of the whole starting point. I also worked with him in ASTM 11 committee. It was called in Philadelphia. He was a member of that. I was a member of that nineteen seventy three. I took his classes at George Washington University in 79 and 80, and from eighty forward it was the NBC White Paper, the four day seminars and so on and so forth. So that was that was my start.

 

[00:04:03] So that's interesting. And Cliff, how did you come across the Deming philosophy?

 

[00:04:07] I was working at Otis Engineering and we had started to try to worry a little bit about improvement over the engineering support of Halliburton and my CEO, Mr. Pervis Strache. He asked me to go to the Deming seminar and take along our R&D manager. This is in 1981, and I was in an elevator. Academi got on. Two ladies were guiding me, man, and he looked at me and saw my George Washington University badge. And he came over and he read it and he backed away from me and he said, Mr. Norman, I'm getting ready to tell you today will haunt you for the rest of your life. And it's actually come true. And then the second thing he said to me, as young as you are at the time I was 29, is as young as you are. If if you're working for somebody and you're not learning from them, you ought to thinking about getting a new boss.

 

[00:05:05] And I thought, well, that's that's extremely profound. And throughout the seminar, I always had a lot of dissonance because a lot of the things I was taught, he was challenging. So, for example, sampling plants, which is a quality engineer, I'd set up lots of snaffling plans for ten years prior to that. And he got me up in front of 500 people at Crystal City and he's worked to learn. As I said, I thought God created this. He said, no, I know the people. They did put people like you out of business types learn something to sit down, you know. And so the whole week was tough.

 

[00:05:46] And I had a strong appreciation for the next few seminars I went to why people would get up. Some of them would get up and leave. And, you know, for example, that was Dr. Donald Berwick, who  Ron and I both have the privilege to work with. And he said after the first few hours, he got up and left and flew back to Boston and he said he was laying there in his bed that night. And he's thinking, you know, I need to go back. And something was really bothered. And he said he was glad he did. But, you know, we put him off so badly that he just got up and left. And, you know, early on we saw we saw that as we watched people, you know, say I can't stand any more of this and get up and leave. But the people who say truly it changed their thinking and it certainly did it for me.

 

[00:06:30] So what are the things we dove into in the conversation with you guys? Is this system of profound knowledge and even starting back after or even during World War two? And Dr. Deming's already been and met with Walter Shewhart and worked with him at the Western Electric Plant. And in nineteen forty two, I believe he he stepped up with Stanford University and started doing a number of seminars and things of that sort. Can you kind of take me from there about how this evolution has started? Because everybody talks about the 14 points in the system, profound knowledge, and maybe even during that conversation we can talk about, you know, what is the difference between those two or is there a difference?

 

[00:07:16] So when I tackle this problem back in January of this year, and because we felt there was such a misunderstanding and that whatever Deming said was permanent and in fact, this paper really shows the evolution of Deming's learning it really, you know, it I think it does a good job of that. So we just submitted this paper to Quality Progress for American Society of Quality and will be published next spring. We think they don't have a date yet.

 

[00:07:47] So that's what I would like to talk about. And I think the overall message is that, yes, it he started with Shewhart's ideas. And what year was that?

 

[00:07:58] When I first met Charlotte, the 1927 fall of 1927. So the name of Huntsman introduced them to Shewhart.

 

[00:08:08] So then what we're going to what we did in this paper was we sort of took it into three parts before 1980, 1988 and 1988 and then 1989 and 1993. And again, Deming's learning this tremendous through that span of time. And but it was suhas ideas applied to the to a Stanford University eight day course on efficacy or statistical quality control for the free world or to Stanford University. Put together this course Hemington at 22 times. So Heming started by teaching S.A.C., which basically is the understanding variation part and the understanding of separation of common and special causes that they learned from Shujaat. So that was the course in 1942. And then we moved forward to 1950 after World War Two, we took that same course and taught it to the Japanese. He was invited to teach the Japanese. So it was another eight day course. What was different and we've been out in the paper was that were managers there, it wasn't just us all quality control people, it was manager. So his message sort of changed to how do managers deal with understanding variation. And so there was an emphasis on management and several of the courses where a lot of managers in the sessions in nineteen fifty. So that kind of was the beginning of a message for management. In the paper we talk about moving up through the 70s to 1980 and of course a big milestone. There was the NBC White Paper. If Japan can, why can't we, which I think did change Deming's life.

 

[00:09:51] He didn't admit that. But from there on then it was a message for management. And so it was his four day seminars. We're starting then in 1980 and 1981, 82, he started saying these are things you should do and should not do.Those evolved into the 14 points, which several of those points came from a seminar.

 

[00:10:14] 1980 was a cliff, I believe. I think, yeah.

 

[00:10:19] They took notes on his seminar with HP. He he saw the notes and he said, I like these ideas. There are ten ideas. And he took those ten and added four more. That was the beginning of the fourteen points.

 

[00:10:33] Things to do and not do, stop doing. They start doing this shortly thereafter. There were four more. It was fourteen points that became the basis of the fourteen points. They changed almost monthly in nineteen eighty, eighty one eighty two, putting less and less emphasis on statistics and more and more emphasis on what manager should be doing and not doing.

 

[00:10:55] Let me ask you a question around just a couple of points of clarification. So in 1950 when they had SQC for management, that was Japanese management, correct? We're more focused. OK, OK. And then and then in 1980 with the white paper in the 14 points where the 14 points then more aimed at U.S. management, would that be fair to say, or Western management?

 

[00:11:23] I would say yes, because the Origin was his seminar with HP, and that very much was a Western or American audience. OK.

 

[00:11:33] I think he actually said that a Tripp in his book Out of the crisis. And I remember in the seminars that I went to, he would always have an asterisk next to the 14 points and then he would say for the transformation of the Western style of management. And I think that message was entirely aimed at Western management. He never taught for fourteen points to the Japanese. In fact, Iran, as part of our collusion with the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, we've been working with them for a number of years through API. And Dr. Connell looked at those 14 points and he said, it seems that Dr. Deming is proposing a humanistic philosophy for the 21st century, that they really didn't recognize the 14 points even now.

 

[00:12:23] Ok, sorry about that, Ron. I just wanted to kind of get some clarification on things for the for the audience. So pick it up from the the development of the 14 points then.

 

[00:12:33] So along with the 14 points and started developing the deadly diseases, which is sort of summaries from the 14 points. But he had seven deadly diseases for the Western management, five of which were for Western management. The last two, he said, are peculiar to the industry in the U.S. and that number six was excessive medical cost. And number seven is excessive cost of liability swelled by lawyers that work on contingency fees. So those were for us specific, but the rest were all for Western management. So he stayed with that for a while. But then I think the questions kept coming. Where do these come from? How do you how do we know these are correct? You know, we should start doing these things. What's the theory behind that? And that sort of evolved in our paper to talk about this. Osaka paper, which was really what's behind the 14 points, and that was 1989, where he talked about profound knowledge that he said these really you need to know these things.

 

[00:13:33] And he ended up with a list of about 15 different elements. What is profound knowledge? So he had a list of 15 and that was in nineteen eighty nine, 1990. And these were presented in his in his four day seminar as a handout. And then it was in nineteen eighty nine, 1990, University of Minnesota had a two day workshop and one of the talks was by three professors and they took those 15 and they grouped him into I think it was six categories. Deming did not attend that session, but he did say the paper and the next month there was down to four and that was the four parts of profound knowledge that was then became 1990 91. And any change them slightly.

 

[00:14:27] And then along in the seminars, they continue to talk about a system of profound knowledge and almost exclusively avoided talking about the 14 points. So it was all about the system of profound knowledge, which became, you know, his 1993 book. So that's kind of the evolution of it.

 

[00:14:49] So from the research that you guys have done, have you come to the opinion then that the 14 points aren't valid anymore? Are they something that's been supplanted by a system of profound knowledge?

 

[00:15:02] I'll give you my opinion. Clifton can give us yours, but I think the 14 points are dos and don'ts. People understand them. And there are things that you can stop doing, not only some things you have to do. So I think they were popular. I think in hindsight, the system of profound knowledge became too abstract because it's the theory. It's a theory behind the 14 points. But for most people, it was too abstract for them to take the system of profound knowledge and to change their behavior, change their actions. So I think it was harder sell when they switched to a system of profound knowledge.

 

[00:15:42] Yeah, Ron pulled out of his notes, as he usually does. He has a wealth of information with personal correspondence with Dr. Deming. And one of the handouts that Ron produced that we put into the paper trip was the first version of the 14 points in early 1982. And we contrast that in our article with the version that came out in 1986 and out of the crisis. And I guess what disturbed me is I went back and I look at the list from 1982. It was far more descriptive and more useful. And I actually was working with a client who was learning about 14 points at the time. And they looked at these and I said, Cliff, this this is far better. What we've done in 86 looks like we've watered these things down. And so I think people will see that in the paper just very profoundly struck with how the 82 version in my mind was more useful than what ultimately was was published. The other thing here, and I think I think Deming sort to appreciate is when he started out with the 14 points he was playing to the social character of the American culture, which just tell us what to go do, give us a silver bullet, what we'll take care of that. And as opposed to really understanding the underlying theory. I think if you have been teaching in England, they would have demanded the theory right off the bat. And unfortunately, we've we have a tendency to feed people with things to go do. That's why when you read blogs, the most important blogs on websites are seven things for this and 10 things to take care of that.

 

[00:17:26] And they actually tell people if you label your blog as such, people will read it, you know, because they expect things to go do.

 

[00:17:34] So I think Deming listen to his own message about the importance of theory and moved into the system of profound knowledge from. What's your thought on that?

 

[00:17:43] Yeah, I think that's correct. And of course, in the new economics that's introduced in chapters three and four, but it did he really didn't talk about the talking points other than they follow naturally from my system of profound knowledge. What he did do in Chapter two was these are the heavy losses. So he talks in the new economics chapter to some faulty practices of management with suggestions for better practice. So here's a two columns present practice and then better practice. And then the reasons why really dig deeper into this is a system of profound knowledge. So he kind of is backed off on the 14 points. But I think is subject to to get ordinary people to understand it is here are present practices, here are better practices. And these are my reasons why in Chapter two, when introducing the system of profound knowledge in chapters three and four. So whether or not it's the right thing, I don't know. But I think most people have trouble with this applying the profound knowledge.

 

[00:18:43] Yes. And one thing I want to ask Cliff about that you brought up there, you said the 1982 version of the 14 points, greater clarity. I'm going to use my words, not yours. Sorry, to the ones that came out later. Can you give me an example or a couple of examples?

 

[00:19:00] Yeah, just consider point number five, which is improved slightly forever, the system of production and service. That's what was published. In 86, if you look at the 82 version, it says used statistical techniques to identify the two sources of waste systems, 85 percent, local faults, 15 percent, you know, strive constantly, reduce this waste. That's that's pretty specific. What to go do. We have a whole industry cottage industry of consultants that now call that lean, Tripp.

 

[00:19:31] Yes. OK, very good.

 

[00:19:35] And, you know, of course, this all goes back to Demings idea of the theory of variation. And that's how he entered the system of profound knowledge was through that window of understanding variation from Shewhart ideas. And from that he found out that if I have common cause variation, I need to understand the system and order to understand the system. I need to engage these people. Therefore, I need to understand the underlying driving needs of these folks in the psychology behind that in order to actually do this in a way that makes sense. I need to use the scientific method with the addition of act which became PDSA, so I need to understand how I'm going to develop tests and implement changes. And so through the window of variation that Demming discovers the other three parts, a profound knowledge. And so it's interesting to me that when I hang around people who have expertize in the systems area, for example, they don't get back to variation people in psychology who have been lucky to work with, they don't get back to variation. And the people who understand epistemology and theory knowledge, they don't get back to understand Gerstmann comedy special cause variation. So the variation window is huge leverage.

 

[00:20:45] I going to say the greatest contribution is putting those four parts together. Again, there's great thinkers in each of those four. But what Deming there to put them together as a system? And it's the interaction of the four parts that provide the profound knowledge he did that no one else said that. You know, I think that's his greatest contribution, which again, makes it more abstract because how do you look at all four of those parts at the same time? That's been the difficulty.

 

[00:21:15] Sure. You know, they're all four of them are deep enough. Yeah.

 

[00:21:21] For to give you another example, point number nine came out, break down barriers between staff areas and as API worked with our clients coming out of the Demming four day seminars, we didn't quite know how to go do that. So we went back to Dr. Deming's production, viewed as a system. And we said, well, if we switch from the organizational chart to actually understand the organization viewed as a system, we can start to break down those barriers so that what we call the linkage are processes, which has been a very valuable method for us. But Demming actually an 82 version, he wrote this. He said, reduce waste by putting together as a team the people that work on design, research, sales and production. If people had heard that message, they wouldn't be out walking around saying, how do we break down barriers between departments, he told them in 1980 to exactly what to go do. And it's interesting that Chrysler, I think, will correct me on this, but they actually put together a research center and a design center that actually did what Dr. Dean is talking about.Point number nine,

 

[00:22:24] And the overall method is Deming's methods change yearly, monthly. And, you know, some people come to a seminar and say, well, you said this last month, I have it. I have it on tape. And his answer was, I make no apologies for learning. Now you have this on tape.

 

[00:22:46] So what we're trying to do in this paper, this paper, it really just shows how his journey of learning and an impact.

 

[00:22:53] I think his gift to us is that the system of profound knowledge is our own journey to learning, and nothing else is really how to learn by using that lens.

 

[00:23:05] So so let's let's talk about that a little bit from your application of espec. And you've just kind of laid the table for Dr. Deming, you know, advanced his learning. And so Piqué is out there to advance. Everyone's learning. What have you learned?

 

[00:23:22] The system of profound knowledge causes us within API to operate better as a consulting group for the simple reason that we all use the same Decha theory when we look at things.

 

[00:23:35] We were I was once confronted by a client in the construction industry and they told me that Lloyd was in a week before and they told me what Lloyd had said. And I said, there's no way Lloyd said that. And they said, What are you talking about? I said, there's no way he could possibly make that statement. And the guy sitting across from the CEO, he said, How long? That time he about 15 seconds. And they started laughing and they said, how did you know? We didn't say that. I said, because Lloyd couldn't possibly think that way. It doesn't match his theory uses. And I know he uses and they start laughing again. And they said, well, you know, we had a big consulting firm in here last week and we test done on their consultant. They immediately switched.

 

[00:24:20] And I said, that's because I have a theory. They're just they're trying to be in the moment and they're trying to satisfy you.

 

[00:24:27] And I'm excited that we're actually interested in helping you learn. And so that's been a profound impact on API as we work together. I can follow Ron easily because I know what was going on. If he talks about something, he makes a statement. He's coming off that those four streams of theory. And if I hear something that doesn't match that, I know that he didn't say that, then he's very much like that, too. When I hear people quote Demming and I hear something that's counter to the theory of variation, for example, or what he would say about psychology, I know that that didn't happen because they just don't wander around too much from that theory.

 

[00:25:04] So, again, I think the word theory is scary to most people. But I think what Deming did for me personally is that theory was not scary, but it's really how we learn.

 

[00:25:15] And so maybe I needed a better understanding, a theory of knowledge, but this idea of making predictions and testing those predictions. And so it was really it was it created a real powerful message for learning about the world I live in. So in general, his models were just he learns every day. And I think just that in the seminars helped everybody walk away saying that. I think he called it a yearning for learning. And so for most people, they didn't learn that in school. They learned it in Demming seminars. Create a lifelong learning for a yearning for learning is a really powerful message.

 

[00:25:58] The other part, I think this is really important. I once had a manager on a seminar and asked me to clip this all seems like common sense. Why isn't everybody doing this? And as we went through the the workshop together about every 20 minutes, this guy would say, you know, this is hard, you know, really learning about this idea of variations hard. And by the end of the two days together, he said, I think I answered my own question. You know, this requires some study. This requires some thought. This is not something you just go to a two day seminar and then you're all finished. This is a life long learning idea and this is difficult. And I think that's part of the reason that people don't embrace Demming right away, because it does require some study and some work.

 

[00:26:44] Ok, and let's let's follow that line of thinking just from a guys who've worked in a variety of industries, you know, applying system of profound knowledge. And and so so from that, what are the hardest things for people to grasp? Does it vary by industry or is it kind of there's just certain things that that are very difficult for your clients to take hold of.

 

[00:27:10] Well, what's common to all industries is there's usually a management structure, and again, this is a theory for management.

 

[00:27:18] So it's easy to see the style of management in these organizations with the lens of profound knowledge. And because that's designed to bring out some of these practices of managers that are faulty. So it doesn't make any difference what industry is. As I look at education or government or industry style and management in the West and a lot of other Eastern countries and a lot of these a lot of traveling in the east and Western practices are becoming more popular, for example, in India and other countries in Asia as well. Because they're popular, they're easy. They think it's what they should do. So it doesn't make any difference what industry. So whatever industry you're in, you need to say, well, how are we managing our people? Looking at it through the lens, for example, they ranking people and why are they ranking people? What are they doing? What's the reward system there? So it doesn't make any difference what industry. And I say just as much in government and education, the ranking of teachers, the ranking, the students ranking of schools, all of its ranking is a deadly disease, one of the deadly diseases from nineteen eighty six. That's even more common today. So these faulty practices are very common across all industries.

 

[00:28:44] So so we haven't heeded Dr. Deming's warning about exporting our dysfunctional management philosophy to Eastern nations then, huh?

 

[00:28:55] No.

 

[00:28:56] Okay. All right, Cliff, you have something to add to that?

 

[00:28:59] Yeah, absolutely. The just walk around the system of profound knowledge with examples of variation rather than really understand that just one common and special cause variation. As we're looking at measures, I'm looking at measures over time, you know, as one charge or control. First, we now have a whole industry of consultants around teaching dashboards that compare this month's measure with some goal, and then they paint it red, green or yellow with absolutely no understanding of whether this measure is suffering from special or common cause variation. We have lots of examples where fundamentally the technique puts management to sleep and are missing opportunities to actually learn from the data because of these so-called dashboards, switching the organization from focusing on the organizational chart to really understand the organization of the system. That's a huge leap and understanding, unfortunately, without the methods of understanding. The organization is a system that Deming gave us the concept. Poor people don't get there, so the system is never under suspicion, which leads right to psychology. So when things go wrong, people start to work on each other instead of the system. It's just the other day being talked about and every theory of knowledge, rather than being able to pose a good inquiry question that leads us to where our ignorance is. We now have lists of tools for people to use under some alphabet soup, you know, use this tool than that tool, use another tool and really being able to pose a good question that leads us on a task where we can get the data that's going to answer that question and only use the proper tools that help us answer that question. That should be considered the first learning principle, only use the tools that are necessary to answer a good inquiry based question which underlies the theory of knowledge.

 

[00:30:50] Let me let me ask you guys a question that you just brought up.

 

[00:30:54] Are you shocked by the number of organizations that you walk into that do not use statistical process control in any form?

 

[00:31:04] Well, to win a Deming prize, which I think there's been 18 companies in India, the one the prize part of the Deming prize is the use of use of sugar control charge. So if you win the prize, you have to practice. Where do I say it? Outside of that is not a common kind of common.

 

[00:31:25] I think a lot of people are getting away from that. Using the Shewhart charts. And again, the importance of separating the common cause and special cause, I think that's I don't know. I think it is going away, but it shouldn't.

 

[00:31:43] It's one of the parts of profound knowledge and it's critical is what is my basis for action? Do I work on the system? I work on special causes, one of which might be on individuals or people. But to blame I always blame people for faults in the system is totally wrong. This will help you separate that. And so I think Demming said in quite a few of his seminars that it'll take one hundred years for people to appreciate the contributions of Walter Schuckert. And I think that's true. And I think we had an API meeting two weeks ago and we're still I think we're still starting to appreciate the power of that statement being made. We're still learning to understand variation. Interesting. I think that's something that we really need to bring, really emphasized to bring back, but it's one of four parts.

 

[00:32:33] Ok, Cliff, you have something to add to that?

 

[00:32:36] Yeah, I just I think one of the most frustrating things to me, Tripp, is to watch people who are out teaching and they really haven't grasped that idea that I mean, one that's about the difference between a number of analytic studies. And so we have a whole bunch of folks out right now that heard, oh, we need to teach statistical techniques. So they went back and they got the book on statistical techniques. And so now we're teaching hypothesis testing and all the rest of it. And the underlying assumptions of all those tests is that the data is going to be independent and identically distributed, so called ID. And so if those assumptions are there, then we can go use that test. He tests and all the rest of it, unfortunately, is shoehorned us that processes in nature are inherently stable and manmade processes are inherently unstable. So we have special clauses present. It destroys all those assumptions. So you would think that by now if I went to a computer program like many tab, rather than get a histogram and distribution of data, the first thing would ask me to do is to plot my data on a run charter control chart to see if I have special clauses present, because from a manmade process, the chances of that are pretty good and then learn from the special causes. And if people understood that, one basic idea would be a lot further down the road than we are right now. And unfortunately, when people hear statistical process control, they actually think that you only use the control chart once something is implemented. They don't understand that. We have to make sure that the data going into the models that we're using is in a state of statistical control before we can start using more sophisticated, so-called sophisticated techniques. Although I would offer somebody has done the work of putting their work on a control chart there along and probably most of what they need to learn about the process.

 

[00:34:25] My last question for you guys is, is there anything that you wish I would have asked that you'd like to expound upon or is there any clarification of anything you have said Deming were alive today?

 

[00:34:36] Would this be the same message? And I would say no. His system of profound knowledge is probably very different. You have different emphasis on it. And the last thing he'd want us to do is to lock into his system of profound knowledge that using those four parts, I think those need to evolve. They can be individual people can see them differently. And I think that's OK as long as we I do think the four parts together. And it's just kind of like a liberal arts degree. You have to have some knowledge and all these things. I think that's important. But the specifics which were locked in when he died and when he published in nineteen ninety three, I think those would be very different if he continued to live. So I think that's the legacy he would like to leave us, is that we need to keep adding to that better understanding and and continue to develop a system to our knowledge and the application of it.

 

[00:35:31] Cliff?

 

[00:35:32] Yeah, I think Ron's hit it right on the head. I don't think Demming would want us to be his store and worship what he did. He would want us to start building on that. And one of the things that I particularly enjoy being associated with API is a contingent learning and continue to build on what helped us try to learn. And I think the work of the institute should be in that vein, as is what can we actually do to keep moving forward and adding to the body of knowledge? Those are the kind of things that we should be talking about more. And I love history, but history only gives me a foundation to move forward.

 

[00:36:16] Very good. Well, Ron Moen and Cliff Norman, thank you for being guests on the Deming InSitu podcast.

 

[00:36:23] Thanks, Tripp. Thanks, Tripp.

 

[00:36:28] This is Tripp Babbitt informing you about the upcoming Demming and Education Conference on November six to be a few thousand fifty at Cedar Brook Lodge in Seattle, Washington, the Deming Institute will feature administrators, teachers and thought leaders that are challenging the status quo in education. For more information, go to the Deming Web site and select events. We hope to see you there.