Episode Details

Join Bill Bellows and Andrew Stotz as they discuss what actions (or inactions) make us worse than thieves and how that relates to expiration dates, and acceptability vs desirability. Plus, stories about job swapping, Achieving Competitive Excellence, and birthdays.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00:02.3 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 31 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. Today is Episode 9, and it's entitled "Worse Than a Thief." Bill, take it away.

0:00:27.2 Bill Bellows: Welcome, Andrew. I haven't seen you in a while, and great to be back.

0:00:29.1 AS: It's been a while.

0:00:32.0 BB: Here we are. Episode 9 already. Gosh, [chuckle] time flies when we're having fun. First, let me say a shout out to people who are reaching out to me on LinkedIn. I spoke with another one of them this afternoon. It's always exciting to connect with them. And then I ideally connect in a regular basis and help them as best I can, and learn from them as best I can.

0:01:03.0 AS: Yep.

0:01:03.2 BB: So, for those who are thinking about it, they keep hearing you say, "Hey, you know how to reach Bill? Find him on LinkedIn." So, a reminder for those who are waiting for a nudge, here's a nudge. So, "Worse than a thief" is an expression that Dr. Taguchi used when he say, Andrew, "Don't be worse than a thief." And we'll get to that, but let me just give our audience some context on that.

0:01:37.8 AS: Yep.

0:01:39.0 BB: Dr. Taguchi would say... And actually, I don't know if Dr. Taguchi explained it. Someone explained it to me this way. He said a thief could be someone who steals your wallet, finds $20; which means they're up 20, you're down 20; which people refer to as "zero sum gain." Right? So, the thief's gain is my loss, zero sum. What could be worse than that? Well, "worse than a thief" would be a situation where what someone gains is nothing compared to what I lose. A simple example is, [chuckle] I'm not the only one who does this, but if I'm going to the supermarket and I get out of the car and I see a nail in the parking lot or a piece of glass in the parking lot on my way in. So, I'm not talking about walking all around the parking lot. I'm talking about if on my way into the store I see a nail, something that could puncture a foot, a tire, and I spend a few seconds to pick it up, throw it in the trash can right by the door, then my theory is the reason I do that, the reason others do that, is the belief that that little bit of time that I am spending doing that could potentially save someone far more than the few seconds it took me.

0:03:20.9 BB: Well, "worse than a thief" would be, I see that broken bottle, let's say a bunch of shards of glass. And having worked at my father's gas station, I've seen... A nail on a tire is one thing. Nail creates a puncture. A piece of glass in a tire creates a fracture. A piece of glass can destroy a tire 'cause you get a crack and it spreads, and that's hard to repair. A puncture with a nail, yeah, it's inconvenient, but that doesn't destroy the tire. So, I'm overly sensitive when I see pieces of glass in a parking lot, that that could ruin a tire.

0:04:04.8 AS: And ruin a day.

0:04:06.2 BB: Ruin a day, oh yeah. And so the