Principle 11: Eliminate Arbitrary Numerical Targets

Common management myths (see here and here) must be replaced by sound guiding principles. In this post, I’ll describe the eleventh such principle, Eliminate Arbitrary Numerical Targets. 

It is worth noting that the 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation are mutually supporting, so it is important to understand all of them rather than studying them in isolation. An in-depth discussion of the full set of Principles for Transformation can be found in Chapter 3 of my recently released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools.

Principle 11: Eliminate arbitrary numerical targets in the form of work standards that prescribe quotas for teachers and numerical goals for people in management. Substitute leadership in order to achieve continual improvement of quality and productivity.

Let’s start with work standards that prescribe quotas for teachers. When you think of quotas you probably think of workers in a production facility and this was in fact Deming’s focus when explaining his Point 11. I decided to keep this part of my Principle 11 because it does show up in different ways in the classroom setting. For example, when I was the school director (principal) of a United Schools Network middle school, the school had a quota of sorts for homework. Teachers had to assign homework nightly, grade 2-3 assignments a week, and return the graded assignments to students within 24 hours. However, I’ve learned that this is the wrong approach. Deming powerfully said that a quota is “a fortress against improvement of quality and productivity… totally incompatible with never-ending improvement.”[1]

There was a noble premise behind the quota, which was that students needed frequent feedback on their work. The problem was that while the work standard was well-intentioned, the actual effect was that teachers spent less time on giving feedback and more time grading a high volume of work. The focus became on meeting the quota (grading 2-3 assignments per week) rather than on giving quality feedback to students. The numerical target for graded assignments superseded the quality of feedback as is often the case when quotas are used in practice.

What was the teacher’s job? Grading 2-3 homework assignments per week or giving students quality feedback? It cannot be both. 

A better approach would have been to make sure that there was a well-articulated aim for giving homework that included a process for ensuring that students received timely and high-quality feedback. The job of management is to replace work standards with knowledgeable and intelligent leadership including having some understanding of the job (teaching in this case). Replacing work standards with leadership leads to higher quality and productivity and people happier on the job. In the homework example, time spent grading homework was probably the number one complaint I received from teachers. A better approach to the 2-3 assignments per week quota would have been to work with teachers to design a system that delivered high-quality feedback to students on a timely basis.

The second part of this principle is eliminating numerical goals for people in management, which is discussed extensively throughout the early chapters of my book. Even so, it’s worth discussing a few key points.

An organization and the various departments and teams within the organization should have an aim, a statement that clearly defines the purpose of the team without being so specific in detail that it stifles initiative. A clear aim statement is something different from numerical goals. Internal goals set in the management of an organization are a burlesque if they do not include a method. Examples include goals such as “increase student attendance rates by 10%” or  “increase math state test scores by 5%.” Inevitably, natural variation in the direction of good is viewed as a success, while fluctuation in the other direction sends everyone running around looking for explanations akin to writing fiction. I’ve been guilty of setting goals such as declaring that we’re going to improve test scores by 10% next year without a clear plan for doing so. In these instances, a fair question would have been: “If we can do it next school year with no plan, why didn’t we do it this past year?” And if we can do it with no plan, why not increase the scores by 20%? One important caveat when it comes to numerical targets are those in the category of “facts of life.” These are plain statements of fact with respect to survival. For example, unless student enrollment improves by 10% next year, the school will have to shut down. This is something altogether different from the arbitrary test score targets.

The main point of Principle 11 is that leaders must understand system capability; in a stable system you get what the system will deliver. If you have an unstable system, there is no way to predict capability. Of course, organizations and individuals need goals, but they do not need arbitrary numerical goals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the goals that I have experienced in the education sector over the last two decades have been arbitrary and often without a method attached. This is inevitable in a sector that lacks an understanding of both the theory of systems and the theory of variation. The result of this lack of understanding is the tendency to blame individuals working within educational systems as opposed to working to improve the system itself. The Deming philosophy offers systems leaders a better way to lead if we so choose.

Blog Series: 14 Principles for Educational Systems Transformation

The four components of the System of Profound Knowledge work in concert to provide us with profound insights about how our organizations operate so that leaders can in turn work to optimize the whole of our systems. However, there is a step beyond simply avoiding the management myths. The next step is to be able to think and make decisions using the lens provided by the System of Profound Knowledge. This is where the core set of 14 Principles come into play. In this series, I’m describing the principles that will enable you to move from theory to practice with the Deming philosophy.

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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools Network, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the newly released book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschoolsnetwork.org. 

Notes

W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (Cambridge, MA: MIT, Center for Advanced Engineering Study, 1986), 71.