Horace had merely flown in from LA, no doubt with a few connections, which he grimly didn't mention: I'd flown to New York, then somehow got to Bangor and hedgehopped to Knox County Airport at Owl's Harbor. With names like that, it just had to be Maine. And we'd done all this for a weekend of camping and fishing. To have a meal of lobster, corn on the cob, salad, baked potato followed by ice cream, lying like a lead weight on a full stomach. We'd actually chosen to come to Lincolnville Beach to have this meal, which neither of us would ever had considered in more normal circumstances. But the circumstances weren't normal - we'd deliberately come here to eat Deming's favourite meal, to indulge in his favourite pastimes (the aforesaid camping and fishing, somewhat helped by the Scottish looking scenery) and to swop Deming quotes.

Horace started. "We lived on it" he said, thoughtfully, looking out onto the bay. But I knew that. It referred to an instructorship Deming got at Yale when he was doing his PhD - $1000 a year, to support him, his first wife and his adopted daughter. Of course, Deming was used to working while studying, and it was back in the 1920s. The PhD thesis was "A Possible Explanation on the Packing Effect of Helium" (all about the nuclear packing of helium, if that makes things any clearer) and Deming went from Yale to the US Department of Agriculture, as he was interested in studying nitrogen and its effect on crops. The interest in statistics came much later. Deming's first degree was in electrical engineering, which must have seemed like pushing back the frontiers of technology then (1917-21), followed by an MS at Colorado and the PhD, both in the maths/mathematical physics area.

So, it was my turn. "He always had an uncanny ability to make things difficult", I whispered. Horace knew I was referring to Deming's view of Shewhart. They had met in the summers of 1925 and 1926 when Deming worked at Western Electric, and then Deming had invited Shewhart to give technical lectures, when he (Deming, that is) was still involved with agriculture. Deming spent a great deal of time popularising Shewhart's work until many of Shewhart's own ideas - like the PDCA cycle - were often attributed to Deming. For that matter, some people maintain that most of the material for Deming's 14 Points was borrowed from Juran. Deming's genius was not so much in being an original thinker, as persuading people to try and aim for continuous improvement and to just remember the importance of quality as a competitive tool.

"Him. He is what's wrong with your company" shouted Horace, pointing at me. I giggled. He'd got out of chronological order a bit, but it made sense, especially after mentioning the 14 Points. Deming had, in his typically abrasive style, opened a management consulting session at a particular firm by asking "Do you know what's wrong with your company?" Before anyone could say anything, he'd turned round and pointed at the President, who was sitting there, innocently ready to thank Deming for his valuable contribution to improving his firm's processes. The President's response is not recorded. Just as well ....

"To make it possible for people to work with joy" I retorted, but Horace knew I was referring to the purpose of Deming's 14 Points. There was two sides to Deming's character - the visionary, who couldn't bear workers being blamed for the faults of management, and the relaxed Deming who played drums and timpani in a band at University, who drove a '69 Lincoln Continental, who went cycling in the countryside with his family until he was well into his seventies and who composed a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" (same words, different music).

"There was nothing - not even smoke" murmured Horace, sadly. Yes, Deming had black days. To him, the task of a statistician was to design experiments, examine the data and provide guidance in how to proceed. He did encourage people to use the control charts Shewhart had invented, but only engineers came to his courses, not the managers and so his statistical efforts just evaporated as management enthusiasm moved on to meeting the current (or next) deadline.

Deming is widely acknowledged as introducing statistical control into post-war Japan. Surprisingly, the story is more complex. He'd got involved with Japan initially to advise on sampling for a major census in 1951 (he'd had a major impact on the US 1940 census with sampling) - one of the major aims was to assess the war damage to determine how much new housing was needed. He'd met many eminent Japanese statisticians and economists, during his first visit to Japan in 1947.

Ken-ichi Koyanagi, Managing Director of JUSE, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, had invited Deming to give the 1950 lectures, but the driver and motivator behind this invitation was Ichiro Ishikawa (father of Kaoru "fishbone" Ishikawa). Deming, having learned from the lectures he had given in the States to which only engineers had attended, asked for senior managers to come; Ishikawa required and requested the senior managers to attend - and Ishikawa, as a wealthy industrialist in his own right, a president of the JUSE and the first president of Japan's very powerful Federation of Economic Organisation, did not get his invitations refused. It was said that refusing one of his invitations was like refusing one from Don Corleone - and as sensible.

Deming's lectures had two major effects - first in popularising the use of control charts, which had been widespread in pre-war Japan, but the use of which had been isolated in individual factories and also destroyed in the wartime bombing. His second effect, the one intended by Ishikawa, was that managers began to realise that responsibility for change actually lay with them, the managers, and this effect was reinforced by the later lectures of Juran.

But, anyway, it was my turn to give a quote. "No, no, no!" I said, in tones of rising horror. It was, of course, Deming's reactions to the "reasonable" questions Clare Crawford-Mason asked, when she was researching the programme "If Japan can, why can't we?" In Japan, Deming was highly regarded. As he'd given his lectures for free, the money raised by selling reprints had been used to set up the Deming set of prizes and he was also awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure in 1960. That doesn't sound much, but it's the highest award Japan could award to a foreigner.

After that programme was shown on tv, Deming went for relative obscurity to celebrity status overnight. Everyone wanted his advice, and it is amazing that he just maintained his simple lifestyle and two room office in the basement of his house. He kept on working, giving lectures, until he was, I think, 92. And he was modest. "I won't even be remembered" he said once "Well, maybe ... as someone who spent his life trying to keep America from committing suicide".

That's maybe why Horace and I were sitting facing each other in the gathering dusk of the lounge, using our quote game as a way of remembering Deming. We could have made the last quote inspirational - "it is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best" - or we could have remembered how he asked for anyone wishing to give a memorial to donate blood. But, instead, we remembered something he said to his family on the phone during a lecture tour, which was overhead by an attendee, and remembered; "Can you make sure the cat has enough catnip, please?"

Sure, Deming will always be remembered in quality circles. But he should be remembered, too, as a man who loved life and was surrounded by love and laughter. And Horace and I aren't the only people who remember him and follow his philosophy - thank goodness!

References? Yeah, I research the subject thoroughly. If anything I've written makes you want to read a bit more about Deming, then why not have a look at the W Edwards Deming Institute web pages or the Deming Co-operative web pages or W Edwards Deming: The story of a truly remarkable man by Robert B Austenfield, Jr (pdf file).

  posted by Dovya R @ 8:24 PM :