Quality gurus come and go, and we all have our favourites.

Some shine brightly for a while, but are very much “of their time” (remember Tom Peters anyone?), others have managed to maintain a longer shelf-life (we’re thinking of Philip Crosby and Joseph Juran). Maybe the key to it is the substance of the work. There is one guru, however, who occupies a position of incomparable status in the quality field, a visionary whose work speaks to people at all levels, from statisticians, to technicians, to academics, to human resource professionals, through to hard-nosed commercial bods. Over the course of almost 4 decades W Edwards Deming produced a body of work that has truly stood the test of time, losing little of its relevance along the way, notwithstanding the incredible changes that we have seen in society and world markets in that time

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I’ll be trying to use the insight and work of Deming to try to develop a deeper understanding of ISO 9001 and, particularly, the 8 principles of quality management. We have a view that these principles, as published in the official text (ISO 9000 series), are introduced and described in quite a trite and unhelpful way, leading to poor management systems application. So we’re trying to do something about it by attempting to put some substantial flesh on those bare bones

Starting with …Leadership
“The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not to find failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure, to help people do a better job and with less effort”

W E Deming, Out of Crisis

Defining and making sense of “leadership” can be a bit like trying to nail a jelly to a wall. Can we establish any parameters that are helpful in any practical way? Well, in the above quote, Deming is advocating that the various tiers of leader use their authority, and the resources at their disposal, to make life easier and better for the poor souls doing the work. Now hang on a minute, that can’t be right can it? How many of us have thought our boss considerably more likely to do just the opposite?

Deming did. In his publication “Quality, productivity and competitive position” he describes the incredible but universal paradox of leadership, that is:

“Most acts of supervision in management … instead of providing help to people, accomplish just the opposite”

It was Deming’s view that the most constructive application
of leadership would be “ … to help people do a better job and with less effort”. This is highly significant, as it has implications beyond the attitude and commitment of “leaders” because for that to happen leaders not only need to support the system, but the system needs to be designed to support its leaders. It is much more than a question of having your heart in the right place. For “quality” to be truly embedded into both process and system, barriers often need to be removed
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