I’ve mentioned on occasion that in my former life I worked
as a Quality Systems Resource at the General Motors St. Catharines GEN III/IV
engine plant and later as a quality consultant training my clients in workplace
organization and problem-solving methodologies. It was through developing course
material for a program that a colleague and I were writing that I met and fell
in love with my wife, Anne-Siri. She had noticed that our course had been advertised
on Linked-In and became interested in applying some of its training methods in
Norway. Which is quite remarkable in since she was educated at Norway’s Sjøkrigsskolen
(Naval Academy) in Bergen, at Staff College in Oslo and subsequently, and
purely for fun, took a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Philosophy
from the University of Oslo, all of which has nothing to do with manufacturing.
Yet, since the course of both love and continuous improvement are seldom linear
but rather discontinuous, here we are. Most of what I have come to know about the
Culture Wars and Critical Theory is the direct result of my relationship with
Anne-Siri as well as from my personal experiences during my time while living
in Norway.
Although continuous improvement may happen in a discontinuous
fashion, it is certainly never revolutionary. When Dr. Edwards Deming, among
others, helped Toyota to develop the Toyota Production System he did not tear
down the previous gold standard for production excellence, the Ford Production
System, rather he built upon it. Where am I going with this line of thought you
may ask? Let me be blunt, when I talk about continuous improvement, I am a
committed disciple of total quality since it assures measurable documented
process improvements led in part by Kaizen Teams who “walk the Ghemba”, as we
call it. In other words, this method engages those who are directly involved where
production issues are cropping up so that they may be resolved at their sources
to have their root cause(s) both identified and corrected.
Which leads me to ask what on earth do “social progressives”
mean when they talk about dealing with systemic issues in the system when?
1. They
do not understand the nature of the system they are attempting to change.
2. Have
not correctly analysed the root cause for the failure(s) they seek to address.
3. Seek
to tear down the very foundations for the process improvements they claim they
wish to implement.
4. Have
no idea how to create a more productive system.
5. Mischaracterise
others who are involved in the actual processes by calling them names while
marginalizing them instead of engaging them in continuous process improvement.
6. Refuse
to measure the actual outcomes of their many failed attempts to create change
to rid them of unwanted waste, cost, variation.
7. Fail
to realize that their attempts to create change have instead created chaos,
disunity, and disorder.
People who haven’t a clue where I am coming from choose to
mischaracterize me for stating these obvious facts. Moreover, there is a mathematical reason why
I teach my clients to ask why 5 times to drill into the issues they are facing.
Asking why 5 times is based upon the Pareto Principle’s 80/20 Rule where 80% of
your problems exist in 20% of the issues you are encountering. Therefore, if
you should ask why 5 times this will help you drill down through the dross to
the root cause(s) of a system’s failures. Since it is not possible nor is it feasible
to deal with everything at once it is therefore advisable to confine oneself to
these top five issues if our goal is process improvement. Since my wife is a
senior bureaucrat, I am aware that this almost never happens in government since
the social reformer types for whom she works are not in the least bit interested
in process improvement. Rather they are committed in demonstrating that their
social progressive policies are achieving their stated goals even in the face
of their blatant failures.
Process improvements are never revolutionary, rather they
are evolutionary. You cannot build a functional system if you seek to tear down
its foundations. Just look at Trudeau’s band of Merry Critical Theorists who
are unqualified reductionists and deconstructionists to their ideologically
confused cores. They are not at all interested in building a better system,
rather they are seeking to bring about the collapse of all functional order which
could have been improved had they only chosen to do so. Any mule can kick down
a barn, but it takes a carpenter using Dr. Deming’s methods to build a better
one!
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