Monday, June 05, 2006

Management Wisdom for You

Dear President Bush,

As the military takes action to deal with the civilian deaths in Haditha, Pentagon leaders make it sound like a few rogue elements are responsible. Yet, their strategy is to enact system-wide change from values training for all deployed in the theatre to advancing mental health teams to the front lines. That is an odd response for dealing with a few bad eggs.

You may wish to consider advice from the American who led the rebuilding of the Japanese industry post WWII. Dr. Deming said “when a worker has reached a stable state, further training will not help him” and “when a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.” Between the Pentagon’s assertions that 99.9% of soldiers already have values and Dr. Deming’s wisdom, it appears the ethics training will have little to no impact. Either that or the problem is more systemic than your henchmen are letting on!

If you wish to see some of Dr. Deming’s wisdom, a free quote is available on the Deming Institute’s website. Check it out! On training he also said “You only have one chance to train a worker, so don’t muff it!”

“There is no knowledge with theory” and “knowledge is the key”! So learn away…

No comments: