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If Japan Can Why Can't We -- is it management
By Arthur Unger JUNE 23, 1980
NEW YORK — One of the most celebrated modern heroes of Japan is an American named W. Edward Deming, a statistical analyst for whom monuments have been built. According to "If Japan Can . . . Why Can't We?" (NBC, Tuesday, 9:30-11 p.m., check local listings), Dr. Deming's name is barely known in America. His specialty is productivity . . . and it's an area in which the United States lags far behind Japan. Is Dr. Deming's day finally dawning in America?
"If Japan Can . . ." is another superb NBC "White Paper" job of solid investigatory journalism, prepared under the aegis of NBC's grandmaster of the documentary, executive producer Reuven Frank, who wrote it with anchor-correspondent Lloyd Dobyns. Necessarily overloaded with "talking heads" because of the serious nature of the investigation, the documentary still emerges as compelling viewing for anybody involved or even interested in the future of America.
The documentary takes the viewer to Japan to watch the workers' Quality Control Circles at work. Unlike most American plants, there is little adversary relationship between worker and management. Cooperation, paternalism, and profitability seem to go hand in hand. Dr. Deming seems to be doing the same things that people who used to be called "efficiency experts" tried to do -- increase productivity by studying current production-line methods.
One of his unique gimmicks is to insist that the machines be allowed to run without workers first -- then he adds whatever workers are needed. His ideas have proved phenomenally successful in Japan, and his ideas or variations of them are beginning to take hold among workers in the US today.
This new philosophy delegates the repetitive labor to machines and reserves the thinking jobs for humans. According to Dr. Deming and other experts, there is great danger when management thinks it is a skill separate from what it manages. That means bringing the worker into greater participation in management decisions. The effect is that workers work "smarter, not harder."
"If Japan Can . . ." zooms back and forth across the Pacific as it examines both the similarities and differences in the Japanese and American experience. If some of the solutions seem simplistic and perhaps too optimistic, the documentary makes it clear that the alternative to increased American productivity and improved quality is a rapid decline in the US standard of living.
The program poses a fascinating question, then proceeds to find the answer. It is more than mere entertainment -- it is an invaluable lesson in economics and the direction of democracy today. Whether or not you like its conclusions, the facts it insistently presents will force you to examine the quality of your own work life . . . and perhaps even your own productivity.
The executive producer is one of television's most skillful purveyors of fine documentaries and the person most responsible for the late and much lamented magazine show, "Weekend," which was probably one of TV's best such programs ever.
In an interview with the Monitor, Mr. Frank lamented the fact that "the new chic concern is that American productivity is going down. That is not true -- but the rate of productivity increasem is going down. That was the original topic for this 'White Paper.'
"In doing this documentary we had this terrible problem of trying to take pictures of ideas . . . or people notm doing something. Cowriter and anchor Lloyd Dobyns and I decided that a study of what the Japanese were doing in this field so successfully would make it more interesting to the average American, who is very much aware of Japanese cameras, TV sets, cars, etc.
"Even those not interested in economics are aware that . . . productivity is making [the Japanese] a lot of money. In fact, if Japanese productivity increases continue to move ahead as fast as in the past and ours remains the same, their national productivity will outstrip ours very soon. Already, since they take our raw materials, and in some cases our labor, and produce products which they in turn sell to us, we are in effect a colony of theirs in some respects."
Mr. Frank has visited Japan many times, and is aware that there are many societal differences which tend to unbalance the comparison. "The eagerness of the Japanese to advance technologically is due mainly to the fact that Japan is an exclusionary society. You cannot 'become' a Japanese citizen. Koreans who have been there for three or four generations are still not allowed to become citizens. The Japanese don't believe in importing foreign labor, so there are no Pakistanis, Turks, or Greeks doing menial jobs, as in Europe. They don't have Puerto Ricans or Mexicans to labor for them. They have to go to machines because they are a labor-short society.
"Also, the Japanese social structure makes it possible for a decision, once reached, to spread throughout the factory, family, society . . . almost unquestioned. But the things they do to increase productivity are not that peculiar. We are doing some of the same types of things here these days.
"There are Quality Control Circles here that seem to work. And don't forget that 200 Japanese companies own and operate plants in the US with American managers and American workers, and they are doing fine. Those plants are oustripping American competition, so we'd better take a good long look at what they are doing."
Has Mr. Frank come to any conclusions as to the reasons for the lag in American productivity?
He takes a deep breath and plunges into what he knows will be controversial matters. "I think it is due primarily to the deficiencies of American management. The very top management has lost its guts. All the great old firms were formed by the old brigands, the so-called robber barons. That generation is gone and we are now into the generation of managers, of MBAs [masters of business administration]."
Isn't there anything Americans can do to reverse the trend in productivity?
"We're already doing some things. American plants are forming Quality of Work Life courses, which involve the workers in the production decisions. In many plants the unions are taking the lead in order to save disappearing jobs. But you must keep in mind that there is a decline in risk taking. It's very difficult to get risk capital these days."
In the documentary summary, Mr. Dobyns points out the danger that this may be the first generation of Americans whose children will not have a standard of living higher than its own. Mightn't that be inevitable, if not with this generation, then with the next?How long can productivity increase?
"I don't buy the idea that in the long sweep of history it may be that productivity has peaked," Mr. Frank answers. "As far as I am concerned, progress never ends. After the First World War, our productivity got an enormous boost from the development of the automobile industry. After the Second World War, it was the TV and electronics industry. Just last week the Supreme Court made a ruling which will allow the patenting of living organisms.
"So, once again we are developing an entirely new field of economic endeavor. And so it goes on and on. . . .
"One of the main fears I had when we started to do this show was that it might turn into a Chicken Little documentary and I would discover that the sky is falling down. Well, that was not our conclusion. I truly believe that things can be done, productivity can be increased . . . but only if somebody wants it to happen."
W. Edwards Deming, If Japan Can…Why Can’t We?, NBC white paper broadcast, 1980. "Management by results — like driving a car by looking in rear view mirror."
http://blog.deming.org/w-edwards-deming-quotes/w-edwards-deming-quotes-from-papers-and-videos/
Lloyd Dobyns (narrator): We have said several times that much of what the Japanese are doing is what we taught them to do. And the man who did most of the teaching is W. Edwards Deming, statistical analyst, for whom Japan’s highest industrial award for quality and productivity is named. But in his own country he is not widely recognized. That may be changing. Dr Deming is working with Nashua Corporation, one of the Fortune 500, a company with sales last year of more than $600,000,000. Deming was hired in late 1979 by Nashua’s Chief executive, William E. Conway.
Bill Conway: And of course our major supplier of copier machines was a Japanese company. And so we saw the advantages of how many things the Japanese companies were doing. And we heard about Dr Deming. And so we got under way with our quality program with Dr Deming.
Dr Deming: They realized that the gains that you get by statistical methods are gains that you get without new machinery, without new people. Anybody can produce quality if he lowers his production rate. That is not what I am talking about. Statistical thinking and statistical methods are to Japanese production workers, foremen, and all the way through the company, a second language. In statistical control you have a reproducible product hour after hour, day after day. And see how comforting that is to management: they now know what they can produce, they know what their costs are going to be.
Bill Conway: Many of these programs on statistics have died in American companies because they didn't get the top management support. Now, why top management does not believe that this is the way the Japanese have improved their industry over the last 30 years I don't know.
Dr Deming: I think that people here expect miracles. American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan—but they don't know what to copy!
Lloyd Dobyns: But one part of Deming’s program is not likely to please them. He insists that management causes 85% of all the problems.
Dr Deming: I ask people in management what proportion of this problem arises from your production worker. And the answer is always: All of it! That’s absolutely wrong. There’s nobody that comes out of a School of Business that knows what management is, or what its deficiencies are. There’s no one coming out of a School of Business that ever heard of the answers that I'm giving your questions—or probably even thought of the questions.
Would Deming's Phone Still Ring Today?
On June 24th 1980 the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) broadcast a white paper documentary in the United States entitled, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” The Japanese quality revolution had been seriously upsetting the economy of the United States for almost a decade. Japanese products were of high quality and low cost –and the low cost could no longer be explained away by an argument that Japan had cheaper labor costs. Japan, an island nation with few resources was becoming the second largest industrial power in the world. Something fundamentally different was going on in Japan, and the producer of the white paper, Clare Crawford Mason, had set out to find out what it was.
In her background research for the white paper Mason interviewed, people in the know, and they kept telling her, “You need to go talk to Ed Deming. He created the Japanese miracle.” She was astonished: An American created the Japanese miracle?
With her interest elevated she went to find Ed Deming and when she found him she was amazed. Dr. W. Edwards Deming was a quiet, rather deaf man who turn 80 years of age in 1980. “This was the man who created a miracle?” was one of her first thoughts. Self-deprecating, Deming would minimize his role in the Japanese miracle, although the Japanese did not. And they were not alone. Still working hard at 80 Dr. Deming was in demand as a consultant in companies and countries around the world, and until this project Mason –and most people in America-- had never heard of him.
“If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” changed all that. Mason featured Deming extensively in the whitepaper, and even before the television program was over that evening in 1980 Deming’s telephone was ringing. It rang for days. It rang for years.
That was then, this is now. Would Deming’s telephone still be ringing? Is Deming still relevant in a world which is as much about service as manufacturing, is licking its wounds from an economic meltdown, is seeing power shifts from Western nations to those in the Far East, and is influenced by internet and mobile technologies that are reshaping how people interact –and the speed with which they do it?
Dr. W. Edwards Deming was a renowned statistician and management expert. His management method shaped much of the world in the latter part of the 20th century. In January 2010, some 16 years after Deming’s death in 1993 we set out to discover if Dr. Deming’s body of work was still considered relevant and applicable to today’s business practices and thinking.
As a part of our research we looked at how often Dr. Deming was cited in books and articles during the 5 years from January 2005 through December 2009. We found an astonishing number of works published during those five years that cite Dr. Deming and/or suggest people rediscover him. In fact, Dr. Deming’s ongoing relevance is attested to in more than 258 books, 172 article citations, and hundreds of internet/blog-only references that provide evidence of Deming’s influence.
We also analyzed the qualitative nature of what was written about Deming in the citations. For example, the citations we found include a large number which relate to Deming’s proven foundation for leadership and management approaches –not just to “quality”. Furthermore, and perhaps most relevant, the citations spanned fields such as finance, engineering, international business, software development, sales, entrepreneurship, marketing, government, education, healthcare, service industries, manufacturing, and not-for-profits to name but a few.
Deming, himself, directly connected management approaches to quality outcomes, and therefore he focused on the management of organizations rather than on the “tools” of operations alone. In fact, he created an entire body of leadership knowledge, The New Philosophy of Management, which did and does transform organizations to be more competitive locally and internationally.
The research was presented in February 2010 at the 16th Annual International Deming Research Seminar at Fordham University in New York City. From that research paper we have selected a few authors to highlight (from hundreds we found in the research) because they are especially eloquent in pointing out what makes Deming is as relevant as ever. In fact, it becomes clear from their words that Deming is even more relevant than ever because he provides a solid, proven foundation for management that works better than any other –and does so in a world that is even more chaotic, unstable, fractured and faster moving than it was in 1980. We think the words of the authors speak for themselves as to Deming’s relevance. See if you agree:
In “CHASING THE RABBIT” Steven J. Spear argues vigorously for paying attention to Deming because Deming (and a couple others) confronted conventional wisdom of how to manage. Although Spear wrote the book before the economic crisis that started in 2008, Spear was prescient in his warning that we ignore the truth and alternatives that Deming provided “at our own peril.” Spear was certainly right about the peril and about the danger of managing via the conventional wisdom. An example of that conventional wisdom is to determine how well you are doing by looking at just the visible numbers –a belief he maintains is rooted in a perverse combination of arrogance and pessimism. Yet that is what so many business schools teach.
Deming was the first and the loudest to label management by spreadsheets and visible numbers alone as a “deadly disease.” That conventional practice kills companies, and contributed to almost killing our economic world, as well. Interestingly, Deming pointed out the perils of conventional management practices more than 30 years ago and warned that survival was not guaranteed if we continue with our old beliefs. We ignored him. Will we continue to do so?
In “HOW THE MIGHTY FALL” Jim Collins expresses his concerns that “hubris born of success, undisciplined pursuit of more, and denial of risk,” have caused leaders to lose their way. Collins urges leaders to look outside their own beliefs and experience for knowledge and to review the classics, including Deming.
Collins is a long-time fan of Deming and has written many times about Deming’s wisdom. I take my hat off to Mr. Collins because few gurus of his stature are self-secure enough or generous enough to recommend studying anything but their own work.
In “IF WE CAN PUT A MAN ON THE MOON: Getting Big Things Done in Government” William Eggers and John O’Leary explain the importance of systems thinking and urge governments to look for the underlying systemic reasons for shortcomings. They refer to Deming’s genius and talk about Deming’s message in regard to complexity and the interrelated nature of processes. Deming argued that leaders should examine a business process as a unified whole. Outcomes are generated by people working together within a system.
As the world has become more connected and interconnected, a systems view is mandatory. Deming may be best known for his work on quality, yet he told interviewers that one of the most powerful elements he taught was systems thinking. Traditional tools to determine what was really going on in a system were and are inadequate. Deming taught more insightful ways to see into a system to analyze what is really going on. And perhaps most important he taught how to lead the system to make sustainable success even in an unpredictable world.
In “TOYOTA CULTURE: THE HEART AND SOUL OF THE TOYOTA WAY” Jeffrey K. Liker and Michael Hoseus (and in Liker’s series of books on Toyota), Liker makes clear Deming’s influence on Toyota. Liker writes, “When I think about Toyota and how it operates, I keep on coming back to the quality guru W. Edwards Deming’s famous edict about constancy of purpose.” Liker says it is Deming’s concept of constancy of purpose that explains why in any given year, if you bet Toyota will make a profit, you’ll probably win. This is constancy of purpose which goes beyond short-term profits and enriching a few executives.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota, indicated publically in 2010 that Toyota had strayed from the company’s roots and core values. Deming’s teachings were cornerstones of those values, and many people have speculated that Toyota is now returning to them. Public announcements indicate that the company is once again rejecting many of the tenets of the typical western management behaviors that Deming abhorred, but which had crept into the company’s psyche.
In “HARD FACTS, DANGEROUS HALF-TRUTHS & TOTAL NONSENSE: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management” Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton counsel us to look at which management practices have stood the test of time, have been thoroughly studied, and that contribute to optimizing the overall system/organization rather than just benefiting the success of one area of a business. Dr. Deming’s management approach gets attention in HARD FACTS because it meets the criteria the authors establish for looking at hard facts and avoiding half-truths and total nonsense.
The authors skewer many management gurus who supposedly provide a more “contemporary” view than Deming. It’s obvious their research indicates that if you want to succeed you should first thoroughly understand the genius of what Deming wrote before you think you can improve on it. They make the case that Deming’s approach is as fresh as ever and that most leaders have yet to embrace it.
In “SYSTEMS THINKING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: The Failure of the reform regime...and a manifesto for a better way” John Seddon talks about eliminating waste in government by using systems thinking. Deming pointed out that the present style of management is something that needs reinventing: the systems approach represents a fundamentally different and more effective way to design and manage work. Moreover in the world of today in which resources are diminishing systems-thinking will help us increase capacity to use our resources more wisely.
Seddon is known for his razor-sharp and stinging criticisms of leaders who want to coast along by just thinking and doing things in the same old way. They would do well to follow his advice in regard to “What should you do tomorrow? I’ll tell you what to do: study something useful. Study something fresh. Study something proven. Study something that is revolutionary. Study Deming!”
Our conclusion from the research is that the body of work of W. Edwards Deming continues to influence the way business authors, thought leaders, and journalists write about the best way to lead and manage organizations. Further, many of the most well-known and distinguished business practitioners, business thinkers, academics, and historians cite Dr. Deming as a man of great insight, even genius, and they advise us to return to studying what Deming taught.
In a world that looks so different from what it did in 1980, so many of today’s thought leaders –and indeed hundreds of authors—find things in Deming’s work that have a universal appeal and power to provide insights into human nature and how things work –and could work. Indeed, Dr. Deming continues to inspire leaders to transform their management beliefs, to innovate, and to increase their competitive advantage as they foster joy in work.
Author's note: Research contributions by Poorani S. Jeyasekar.
If you wish to receive a copy of the complete research paper presented at the 16th Annual International Deming Research Seminar at Fordham University, e-mail us here. Copyright 2011 Kelly Allan Associates.
Editor’s Note: The columns published in THE DEMING FILES have been written under the Editorial Guidelines set by The W. Edwards Deming Institute®. The Institute views these columns as opportunities to enhance, extend, and illustrate Dr. Deming’s theories. The authors have knowledge of Dr. Deming’s body of work, and the content of each column is the expression of each author’s interpretation of the subject matter.
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