1st principle of Deming. Persistence of goal
This email is a continuation of a series of discourses on the 14 principles of E. Deming's management. The beginning of this series
So, the first principle of E. Deming says:
Achieve the consistency of the goal - continuous improvement of products and services.
Deming explains the importance of consistency of purpose mainly because the company, whether it is engaged in the provision of cosmetic services, whether it sells large nuts in bulk or produces aircraft, has a deeper and significant interest in this month and in this quarter — an interest in keeping the business . The main task (at least of some) of business owners and shareholders is not to make a profit now (by the end of a quarter or a year), but to ensure that the business continues to exist five years later, twenty years later, and fifty years later. . It does not matter if each of your employees expects to leave you within the next five years (someone after a month, someone after two years): this is a problem for you as a manager and owner (or this is not a problem for you).
')
In fact, in many companies, the work is structured in such a way that for its employees there is nothing more important than the profit that they can receive in the foreseeable future. The central problem of such a way of thinking and such an organization of work lies in the fact that sooner or later in the pursuit of profit, in pursuit of external indicators of business success, in pursuit of business, people in the company completely forget about the meaning of business, if the top management at all once at least once clearly explained to them by example what the meaning is.
This is a key point. What is the meaning of business?
Constancy of the goal is not a question of the planning horizon in business (well, maybe, only partially). When Western businessmen first became acquainted with the style of work of Japanese companies, among other things that struck them was the planning horizon of Japanese companies, reaching two hundred, three hundred or even five hundred years. After the western bigwigs of the business stopped grabbing their tummies and finished laughing, some of them thought that maybe they didn’t understand something in this life. How can you plan profits for two hundred years ahead? Someone smart from a cohort of Western business consultants said in this regard:
“The question is not that you are planning a profit of two hundred years in advance, the question is that your vision extends to two hundred years in advance.”
What may sound more elegant? However, he, unfortunately, did not explain what it means - “a vision for two hundred years ahead” - and left everyone to think it through.
Once I conducted a seminar on strategic business goals in a company. One of the first things you get in the form of feedback to the question “What is the purpose of the company?” Is a dull variety of answers that the purpose of the company is money. So it is written in the Charter. In the first line.
“Mega-Company Ltd.” was created for the purpose of making profit. ”
What you do not constancy of the goal?
Think about why Deming did not put an end to the formulation of the first principle of management immediately after the words “Achieve the consistency of the goal”? This is because it is so disgustingly banal and so widespread in the office atmosphere - to assume that the meaning of business is in money. The point here, of course, is not banality and that the goal is not decomposable as money into tasks (man is such an animal that he can even decompose even a very delusional goal into tasks), the point is that this goal is erroneous. Because a goal like money, sadly, contradicts the meaning of what is a business.
It is noteworthy that all the founders of truly large and truly good companies are dreamers. These are not managers. In the case of a manufacturing company (GE, Toyota, P & G, Pfizer, Nestle, etc.), their founders are the inventors. These are not managers again. And managers are those who came to these companies after the first generation, i.e. after the founders. (And spoiled everything.) Recall the SONY of the Introduction. Tell Thomas Edison (GE) or Kiichiro Toyoda (Toyota) that their goal is money? Say this to Lee Iacocca (Ford), who fussed like a boy, burning with impatience to present the Mustang to the court of people? Do you know this feeling? If yes, then I suppose you understand what the meaning of business really is. Think about it.
The only way to focus on business is a product or service. Business is about it. J. Liker said more abstractly:
"The goal of the company is the creation of value."
To be honest, I don't know what it means to create value. The word “value” in my brain is weighted with so many meanings that I am lost. Understand very clearly that a product or service is the main, fundamental, fundamental meaning of your company. Perhaps realizing this, you will understand better than me what it means to create value.
In this country (probably, as in others), unfortunately, very, very many products and services are only ineptly, lazily, roughly embodied concepts. By entering McDonald's, you most likely get the concept of a good impression from visiting a restaurant amid a disgusting real impression. It is elementary to understand that a product or service consists of at least two things: not only from the concept, but also from the quality of its implementation; however, it is impossible to realize if you are chasing profits. Are you not tired of my rhythmic italics? Perhaps, from this italics a new gyrus will form in the brain - who knows? The fact that if your goal is profit, then you get low quality and high costs, I will talk in the following e-mails, especially when I talk about Deming's eleventh principle. Now it is important to understand that you can have any kind of brilliant idea in the context of a product or service, tearing the head of anyone who is aware of it, but if your product or service is small, then the genius of the idea does not compensate for anything in the eyes of the consumer, and you incur costs both at the production stage and at the sales stage, which, however, are not at all comparable with the costs associated with a bad impression of what you sell. And what are you actually selling? If I decide that, for example, McDonald's is selling hamburgers, then I’m wrong. They sell the impression of visiting the restaurant. And the three-dimensional embodiment of this intention is expressed in the fact that in reality they sell me the concept of an impression, which I do not want to buy at all.
I will be frank with you: I believe that the goal is evil. Everything that is connected in my head with the setting of goals, with the fact that it is necessary to “meet the goals”, with the achievement of goals, etc., makes me bored. Because once I stopped understanding what it meant, and stopped internally connecting with it. One clever man, the owner of a consulting firm, once told me: “Andrei, don't you understand? All you need is to set a goal and match it. ” I realized that the very word "goal" confuses me. It tells you that you have to come to something after a while, but it is silent about what you have to do all the time you go. And although the ability to see a certain future state that can be achieved, perhaps, is what a whole piece of the human brain is responsible for, ie this ability may not be denied, I have an idiosyncrasy for goals. However, in business, the word “goal” is a monster at ease, try to deny it.
And in fact, the formulation of the first principle of Deming is a compromise. Deming knows how much harm and misunderstanding has brought too frequent and incorrect use of the word "goal" in business, but Deming could not exclude this word from the first principle. It would be much more honest if he said directly:
Achieve continuous, continuous improvement of products and services. Forget the goals.
The idea of ​​continuous improvement is so important to business that Deming includes its formulation in two principles: the first and the fifth, and she herself is discussed in one way or another in every fourteen paragraph. In the first principle, the emphasis is shifted towards consistency, and the point here is to stop at the level of the company and a specific employee practice short-term thinking, calculated for a month, a quarter or a project: this does not lead to anything good. The only way to ensure continuous, continuous improvement of products and services is to switch the company's attention from the output (ie, results) to the way. We are talking about the whole company and about each of its employees from top management to those who occupy the lowest positions. For this you need to understand what the company sells. In fact, this means that every department and employee must understand what their job is. Did McDonald's management realize that every employee was selling impressions? Has McDonald's management made operational definitions for the sales process? Management doesn’t neglect anything as extensive as clear explanations of what an employee and the company as a whole should do. The problem is that the management doesn’t know what to do. Among other things, therefore, for management, the phrase “continuous improvement” is simply a set of letters or sounds, depending on whether it reads or listens to it. Continuous improvement? Perfectly! What will we improve?
I type pretty quickly. You know that if you print the text as quickly as possible, the percentage of errors increases, and the speed drops, and not only because it takes time to correct them? And if you print the text, avoiding errors, then the speed of printing increases? Striving for speed, you incur costs, lose in quality and speed. Striving to improve the method (method), you win in everything, including in the output. When you are focused on output (result, norm, project deadline, deadlines in general, etc.), it distracts you from the way and inspires fear in you. I will talk about this more than once.
Really good companies think about what Deming said in his first principle of management, they make this principle part of their company's system, and without reading further, they can tell me what the other thirteen are. Because when you are released from the pressure of all and any results and switch to a method, you understand everything you need for a successful business, and you get results.
Tomorrow we will talk about adopting a new philosophy, Deming's second principle.
So, the first principle of E. Deming says:
Achieve the consistency of the goal - continuous improvement of products and services.
Deming explains the importance of consistency of purpose mainly because the company, whether it is engaged in the provision of cosmetic services, whether it sells large nuts in bulk or produces aircraft, has a deeper and significant interest in this month and in this quarter — an interest in keeping the business . The main task (at least of some) of business owners and shareholders is not to make a profit now (by the end of a quarter or a year), but to ensure that the business continues to exist five years later, twenty years later, and fifty years later. . It does not matter if each of your employees expects to leave you within the next five years (someone after a month, someone after two years): this is a problem for you as a manager and owner (or this is not a problem for you).
')
In fact, in many companies, the work is structured in such a way that for its employees there is nothing more important than the profit that they can receive in the foreseeable future. The central problem of such a way of thinking and such an organization of work lies in the fact that sooner or later in the pursuit of profit, in pursuit of external indicators of business success, in pursuit of business, people in the company completely forget about the meaning of business, if the top management at all once at least once clearly explained to them by example what the meaning is.
This is a key point. What is the meaning of business?
Constancy of the goal is not a question of the planning horizon in business (well, maybe, only partially). When Western businessmen first became acquainted with the style of work of Japanese companies, among other things that struck them was the planning horizon of Japanese companies, reaching two hundred, three hundred or even five hundred years. After the western bigwigs of the business stopped grabbing their tummies and finished laughing, some of them thought that maybe they didn’t understand something in this life. How can you plan profits for two hundred years ahead? Someone smart from a cohort of Western business consultants said in this regard:
“The question is not that you are planning a profit of two hundred years in advance, the question is that your vision extends to two hundred years in advance.”
What may sound more elegant? However, he, unfortunately, did not explain what it means - “a vision for two hundred years ahead” - and left everyone to think it through.
Once I conducted a seminar on strategic business goals in a company. One of the first things you get in the form of feedback to the question “What is the purpose of the company?” Is a dull variety of answers that the purpose of the company is money. So it is written in the Charter. In the first line.
“Mega-Company Ltd.” was created for the purpose of making profit. ”
What you do not constancy of the goal?
Think about why Deming did not put an end to the formulation of the first principle of management immediately after the words “Achieve the consistency of the goal”? This is because it is so disgustingly banal and so widespread in the office atmosphere - to assume that the meaning of business is in money. The point here, of course, is not banality and that the goal is not decomposable as money into tasks (man is such an animal that he can even decompose even a very delusional goal into tasks), the point is that this goal is erroneous. Because a goal like money, sadly, contradicts the meaning of what is a business.
It is noteworthy that all the founders of truly large and truly good companies are dreamers. These are not managers. In the case of a manufacturing company (GE, Toyota, P & G, Pfizer, Nestle, etc.), their founders are the inventors. These are not managers again. And managers are those who came to these companies after the first generation, i.e. after the founders. (And spoiled everything.) Recall the SONY of the Introduction. Tell Thomas Edison (GE) or Kiichiro Toyoda (Toyota) that their goal is money? Say this to Lee Iacocca (Ford), who fussed like a boy, burning with impatience to present the Mustang to the court of people? Do you know this feeling? If yes, then I suppose you understand what the meaning of business really is. Think about it.
The only way to focus on business is a product or service. Business is about it. J. Liker said more abstractly:
"The goal of the company is the creation of value."
To be honest, I don't know what it means to create value. The word “value” in my brain is weighted with so many meanings that I am lost. Understand very clearly that a product or service is the main, fundamental, fundamental meaning of your company. Perhaps realizing this, you will understand better than me what it means to create value.
In this country (probably, as in others), unfortunately, very, very many products and services are only ineptly, lazily, roughly embodied concepts. By entering McDonald's, you most likely get the concept of a good impression from visiting a restaurant amid a disgusting real impression. It is elementary to understand that a product or service consists of at least two things: not only from the concept, but also from the quality of its implementation; however, it is impossible to realize if you are chasing profits. Are you not tired of my rhythmic italics? Perhaps, from this italics a new gyrus will form in the brain - who knows? The fact that if your goal is profit, then you get low quality and high costs, I will talk in the following e-mails, especially when I talk about Deming's eleventh principle. Now it is important to understand that you can have any kind of brilliant idea in the context of a product or service, tearing the head of anyone who is aware of it, but if your product or service is small, then the genius of the idea does not compensate for anything in the eyes of the consumer, and you incur costs both at the production stage and at the sales stage, which, however, are not at all comparable with the costs associated with a bad impression of what you sell. And what are you actually selling? If I decide that, for example, McDonald's is selling hamburgers, then I’m wrong. They sell the impression of visiting the restaurant. And the three-dimensional embodiment of this intention is expressed in the fact that in reality they sell me the concept of an impression, which I do not want to buy at all.
I will be frank with you: I believe that the goal is evil. Everything that is connected in my head with the setting of goals, with the fact that it is necessary to “meet the goals”, with the achievement of goals, etc., makes me bored. Because once I stopped understanding what it meant, and stopped internally connecting with it. One clever man, the owner of a consulting firm, once told me: “Andrei, don't you understand? All you need is to set a goal and match it. ” I realized that the very word "goal" confuses me. It tells you that you have to come to something after a while, but it is silent about what you have to do all the time you go. And although the ability to see a certain future state that can be achieved, perhaps, is what a whole piece of the human brain is responsible for, ie this ability may not be denied, I have an idiosyncrasy for goals. However, in business, the word “goal” is a monster at ease, try to deny it.
And in fact, the formulation of the first principle of Deming is a compromise. Deming knows how much harm and misunderstanding has brought too frequent and incorrect use of the word "goal" in business, but Deming could not exclude this word from the first principle. It would be much more honest if he said directly:
Achieve continuous, continuous improvement of products and services. Forget the goals.
The idea of ​​continuous improvement is so important to business that Deming includes its formulation in two principles: the first and the fifth, and she herself is discussed in one way or another in every fourteen paragraph. In the first principle, the emphasis is shifted towards consistency, and the point here is to stop at the level of the company and a specific employee practice short-term thinking, calculated for a month, a quarter or a project: this does not lead to anything good. The only way to ensure continuous, continuous improvement of products and services is to switch the company's attention from the output (ie, results) to the way. We are talking about the whole company and about each of its employees from top management to those who occupy the lowest positions. For this you need to understand what the company sells. In fact, this means that every department and employee must understand what their job is. Did McDonald's management realize that every employee was selling impressions? Has McDonald's management made operational definitions for the sales process? Management doesn’t neglect anything as extensive as clear explanations of what an employee and the company as a whole should do. The problem is that the management doesn’t know what to do. Among other things, therefore, for management, the phrase “continuous improvement” is simply a set of letters or sounds, depending on whether it reads or listens to it. Continuous improvement? Perfectly! What will we improve?
I type pretty quickly. You know that if you print the text as quickly as possible, the percentage of errors increases, and the speed drops, and not only because it takes time to correct them? And if you print the text, avoiding errors, then the speed of printing increases? Striving for speed, you incur costs, lose in quality and speed. Striving to improve the method (method), you win in everything, including in the output. When you are focused on output (result, norm, project deadline, deadlines in general, etc.), it distracts you from the way and inspires fear in you. I will talk about this more than once.
Really good companies think about what Deming said in his first principle of management, they make this principle part of their company's system, and without reading further, they can tell me what the other thirteen are. Because when you are released from the pressure of all and any results and switch to a method, you understand everything you need for a successful business, and you get results.
Tomorrow we will talk about adopting a new philosophy, Deming's second principle.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/24705/
All Articles