Some Reflections... and a Challenge

Time to stop doing the wrong things badly

I have reached one of those life landmarks (receiving my Medicare card) and have been reflecting back... a lot. I will remain every bit as passionate about improvement and don’t think I will ever formally retire, but I also doubt I will have W. Edwards Deming’s tenacity to keep at it until I (hopefully) turn 93.

I’ve been writing columns for Quality Digest for more than a dozen years. Are all of my topics still relevant? I believe so.

What about progress in improvement? Going back even further than 12 years, I also reflected on and concluded that despite all the mind-blowing technological advances that have taken place during my 35-year career, improvement progress remains glacial.

Tick... tick... tick.... Is the next “magic bullet” fad du jour lurking to create further distraction from true root causes?

David Kerridge, one of most brilliant Deming thinkers in the world, had a wonderful quote: “If we are actually trying to do the wrong thing, we may only be saved from disaster because we are doing it badly.”

And the last few years, especially in healthcare, seem stuck in “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

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Glacial Progress of Improvement

Unfortunately, this lack of progress is due to how we think about improvement and how we teach it. Two and four week certifications teach that improvement is slow, cumbersome and complex, rather than fast and agile.

All this drum beating about top leadership involvement only works half the time. (1 Sigma)

Be the leader you want to see. Stop waiting for someone to give you permission. Start using the tools and making improvements wherever you are.

Stop trying to do it "the way it's always been done." Start finding and using faster, better, cheaper ways of improving processes without all of the jargon and hype.

Stop teaching people things they don't need to know to solve problems they don't have. Don't use tools you don't need.

What we have here is 100 years of tradition, uninterrupted by progress. Progress will not change until we do.