>When you are looking include companies that have adopted Deming ideas.
>There is very little new in Senge's approach other than the diagrams to
>help us think about systems and perhaps some emphasis. Companies adopting
>Deming have been learning and improving for decades now.
>
>Senge's writing is more clear and more interesting but underneath it is
>very much the same ideas.
>
>Gene
Gene,
I agree Senge's writings are more clear and more interesting than
Deming's. I agree that that Deming's Profound Knowledge encompasses LO
teachings. However...
Senge writes:
*Deming is deeply frustrated with the inability of American management to
grasp the deeper messages of the world-wide quality movement. Despite
serious efforts in many companies in the past decade, by and large we are
back where the Japanese were in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on using
statistical process improvement to understand, measure, and improve
physical processes. But we are missing the deeper levels of total quality
management, what quality pioneer Ishikawa once called the thought
revolution in management.*
In my humble opinion, Senge picked up where Deming stopped. Deming
stopped a little short. He did not emphasize enough the deeper learning
cycle and stopped at the PDSA continual improvement learning cycle. To me
there is a difference. Deming did not clearly define the assumptions,
beliefs, and values inherent in his philosophy and many reduced it to
physical processes. Tragic. As a result, the greater emphasized
reductionism...even though he was very much holistic. He prophesied the
need for a thought revolution or metanoia. But did not communicate the
message in great enough depth.
I participate a little on both the Deming and LO lists. I find the LO
list much more open to dialogue in greater depths...more double loop
learning going on. I don't get blasted nearly as much on the LO list.
People here seem to incredibly open and better equipped to engage in
dialogue as opposed to discussion and debate. To me, this points to a
difference between Senge and Deming or at least the prevailing
interpretation of Deming. I see the DEN as yet a closed system still
debating over performance appraisals. Both are very valuable to me. The
DEN emphasizes mechanistic reductionism, which appeals to the engineer in
me. The LO emphasizes holistic expansion, which appeals to the learner,
philosopher and spiritual being in me. Senge and the LO list are filling
in the artifical gap between science and spirituality that I long for.
Both are equally pragmatic, but in different ways. Both get to the heart
of what it means to be human.
Deming IS a great man. I am extremely grateful. I needed more in my quest
to understand the depth of what he taught. Senge and others meet that
need. For this, I am grateful also.
Have a Great Adventure!
Don Kerr
--"Kerr, Donald A" <Donald.A.Kerr@USAHQ.UnitedSpaceAlliance.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>