Episode Details

When things go wrong, who gets blamed? When things go right, who gets the credit? Dr. Deming wrote that good managers don't play the blame/credit game. Instead, they "study results [of feedback] with the aim to improve performance." In this episode, David Langford and host Andrew Stotz discuss getting honest feedback, how to react, and why it's important.

TRANSCRIPT

0:00:02.7 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion with David P. Langford, who has devoted his life to applying Dr. Deming's philosophy to education and he offers us his practical advice for implementation. The topic for today is improving performance. Who's at fault? David, take it away.

0:00:28.8 David P. Langford: Hello again. So we are at point number eight on Deming's role of a manager of people. And it says he will study results with the aim to improve his performance as a manager of people. So once again, Deming wasn't into all the pronouns that we use now and everything. So when he says he, he means he, she, anybody that's a manager of people. So, our aim is to improve performance and everything that we do. Right. So I think what's going on with this simple point that he's making is to get people to think about when things go right, or things go wrong, who's at fault, or who gets the reward or who gets the blame for that process.

0:01:29.1 DL: And as a manager, if things are going well, of course, everybody wants to take credit for that, whether you're a teacher or superintendent, business owner, or whatever, then it was, the same way in politics, right? Everything's going well. Oh, I did it all. And if things are not going well, then obviously it was somebody else's fault. Right. Or if you're a manager of people, like what Deming is talking about here, we have a tendency to blame the individual without first thinking about ourselves as the manager of that situation. So I was just coaching a group of teachers and talking to them about how difficult it is to really think like that as a teacher. Because you think, "Okay, I worked really hard on this lesson, I got everything prepared, I came in and I did it."

0:02:23.8 DL: And I don't know how many times I've heard teachers say something like, "Well, I taught them, but they didn't get it." [laughter] Well, that's probably the problem, you taught them, but they didn't learn it. [laughter] Well, that's probably the problem, right? You taught them, but they didn't they didn't learn it, which is two different things. It's possible to teach and get learning, but it's better to create actual learning experiences through that process. So you have to think about if I'm not getting good results I don't care what your position is as a manager of people I have to turn the finger of blame back towards me and start to say, "Okay, what am I doing differently?" And that's a hard pill to swallow when you start to think like that and because usually most people are trying to put in their best efforts. And Deming said many times we're being killed by best efforts, [chuckle] which is like a crazy thought to think about, wow, I shouldn't be trying hard. Well, you should be working in the right way. So if you're not getting the results that you want probably the very first thing is to go back to the people that you manage and ask them what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong or what could be improved. And I have seen this with just very little kids, like three, four, five-year-olds, when the teacher says, "We just went through that lesson and it seemed like some of you weren't interested, you know, what was the problem?"

0:04:05.4 DL: And they'll tell you, [